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Weird boot pain - need advice

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Krokodile
Posts: 350 - Karma: 40
I've recently begun having this pain with my Full Tilts this season.  It happens on both ankles, one third of the way up on the outside of my calf, between the 2 and 3 o clock position on my right and 9 and 10 o clock position on my left leg.  It feels like the pain is in the tendons or muscles.  It gradually fades over 4 or 5 days but is re-activated after one day of skiing.

Before you jump to conclusions (should have seen a bootfitter, and so on):

- I went to a bootfitter and was fitted for the boots.
- The boots felt fine after I broke them in (3 days).  They felt amazing by the 5th day.
- The pain did not start until my 6th day of skiing this season.
- This is not shinbang (had it in my last pair of boots), it's more on the side of the leg.
- Hurts badly when I press on the area after a day of skiing.

My two theories are: after the liner packed out, the padding grew thin in the area where the intuition liner ends (the inside seam or whatever you wanna call it).  When I tighten the top buckle, I can feel the part where the buckle is attached to the shell press into my leg.  Whether the seam of the liner or the buckle/shell is to blame I'm not sure.
OR
I sprained both ankles at some point (as indicated by the tendon pain) from one of the many times I wrecked and every time I ski it aggravates the sprain as I haven't given it time to heal.

I will try to see a bootfitter in the near future but know there are some knowledgeable people on here who might have seen this problem before. +k for helpful answers.
Jan 8 2013 7:27PM
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MittensFoDayze
Posts: 250 - Karma: 16
Do you have a footbed?
Jan 8 2013 7:32PM
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Krokodile
Posts: 350 - Karma: 40
No footbed, but I am curious about superfeet insoles because I've seen them mentioned in boot pain threads.  Would a footbed really make a big difference in regards to pains in the ankle, though?
Jan 8 2013 7:41PM
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Bertrand
Posts: 423 - Karma: 457
I had this exact same problem all of last season. I got custom footbeds, problem solved. My foot was pronating inside the boot, putting strain on the outside of my calves. Once I got support inside the boot, no more pain.

Go get some type of support for your foot, and I'm pretty sure the pain will go away. What you described, from what I can tell, is exactly what happened to me last season. Now I'm in First Chairs with my footbeds, about to throw boosters on them. Stoked.

Hope it all works out! It ruined a few days for me for sure. Any more than one day of skiing in a row and I couldn't walk after. Getting to class sucked.
Jan 8 2013 7:43PM
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No.Quarter
Posts: 5257 - Karma: 16,961
what brand do you have, and how much did you spend, and what did they do to make it custom?
Jan 8 2013 7:44PM
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Bertrand
Posts: 423 - Karma: 457
Superfeet outlast cork insoles.

They basically shove cork into an oven, it gets all soft, you sit on a chair, they put the footbed with the cork under it on your feet inside of a plastic bag, then they vacuum form it to your foot. It cools while being molded to you, then becomes rigid. Rigid isn't bad though, because it is formed to your foot. My footbeds would probably be uncomfortable to someone else, and vice-versa. The foam footbed on top of the cork also compacts a little when its hot, so I have full custom arch support, and at the toes, you can tell where the "knuckles" of my toes are. It's rad.

They were like $110 at Larrys Boot Fitters in Boulder, CO.
Jan 8 2013 7:57PM
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MittensFoDayze
Posts: 250 - Karma: 16
Expensive but worth it. Will probably buy more expensive beds when my feet stop growing.
Jan 8 2013 8:04PM
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No.Quarter
Posts: 5257 - Karma: 16,961
cool. that's where I want to go but boulder is like an hour away. Or I might go to Eskimo Ski and Board which is like a 5 minute bike ride from my house. Sorry if i'm thread jacking but does anyone know about them? I've heard they are pretty good too (not as good as Larry's though). The Custom Foot is also relatively close to me.
Jan 8 2013 8:09PM
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tripnip
Posts: 1882 - Karma: 482
i found that when i added foot beds it just added more pain to my foot becuase there is no foot bed originally and the extra volume from the cork foot bed just cause me more pain. on thing it can be is the side the overlap goes switch it around and see if that helps but be careful when you drop big bucks on a custom foot bed
Jan 8 2013 10:43PM
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Bertrand
Posts: 423 - Karma: 457
Did it hurt your foot or the side of your leg? Cause getting boots without a footbed then throwing beds in there can ruin the fit of a boot that you bought without a footbed, cause you tried them on without footbeds.

Getting footbeds is the most important part of your boot. Like, you'll take them in for every boot you try on in the future, because you wouldn't go without a custom footbed, screws the fit off.

Don't know what point I was trying to make there. Wasn't discrediting your point. They probably made your feet hurt, cause you added them into a boot that you bought without the beds. But, if they made the sides of your calves hurt, tell us haha.
Jan 8 2013 11:25PM
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Its_Greg
Posts: 262 - Karma: 80
I had a similar pain shooting down the side of my calf in one of my booters but then I realized my canting screw was loose and backing out so the shape of the boot was changing. Its worth a shot to check those.
Jan 8 2013 11:31PM
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onenerdykid
Posts: 6656 - Karma: 10,859
This is 99% footbed related issue. Just like boots, not all footbeds work or fit the same. You should sit down with your boot-fitter and find the best solution that will work for your feet AND in conjunction with your boot.

If your boot-fitter does not make footbeds, go to a different shop that does. Race shops and high-end ski shops will provide this service.
Jan 9 2013 2:53AM
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DMB123
Posts: 100 - Karma: 32
hey since we are talking about weird boot pain, I have technica mega 10s and I know they aren't really meant for park, but everytime I land away from a box, It feels like the tounges are just splintering my shins. Is this problem just because they aren't park boots? The only reason why I'm rocking them is because I got them used for 50 bucks and just started skiing. Though I have heard that other people use them a lot. Some advice would help a lot.
Jan 9 2013 4:12PM
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Krokodile
Posts: 350 - Karma: 40
The boots are too big and/or you are landing backseat.  Most likely a fit problem.  Go see a bootfitter; whether a boot is meant for park or not doesn't matter, the most important thing is that it fits you.  I skied Atomic racing boots that were 2 sizes too big and got shinbang so bad I had to stop skiing a few times.

Thanks and +k to everyone who replied.  Going to look into some footbeds this weekend!
Jan 9 2013 8:26PM
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DMB123
Posts: 100 - Karma: 32
Thanks for the tip but it doesn't seem as if they are too big, they feel like they fit perfectly, and it was like the 7th day I skied it started happening.
Jan 9 2013 9:04PM
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profa_212
Posts: 8848 - Karma: 35,267
Stop landing backseat then. The boots do not fit right, even if they feel like it. Not really much you can do at this point. You could try some booster straps, but its probably not going to help much. Go to a boot fitter if you can. Same thing happened to me with some spks.
Jan 9 2013 9:21PM
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3000
Posts: 941 - Karma: 249
Last season my boots were a size too big for me and I got some footbeds and it almost felt like they fit. If your boots fit I can't imagine the wonders that some footbeds would do for you.
Jan 9 2013 9:27PM
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Blake.P
Posts: 9894 - Karma: 3,585
Oh my god that sounds so nice. I was gonna go get some Footbeds before I left for school, but I'll just go get some of those when I'm back in boulder.
Jan 10 2013 12:35AM
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Mt_Baker_Man
Posts: 2012 - Karma: 105
I actually have the same problem with most boots... let me guess, you have a normal heel, wide forefoot, but extremely thin/weird ankle? My ankle is high volume on the inside of my feet, and LOW volume on the outside, which causes my ankles to roll in my boots, which causes the exact same muscle/ligature strain you are describing. I have custom skiing orthodics, extremely professional boot fitting, and extremely low volume plug world cup boots that have been blown out/ground to fit other parts of my feet, and still I have this problem.

The ONLY solutions that have worked for me are packing foam tape on the outside of my lower legs(attached to the inside of the boot shell). Or a custom injected foam liner, which is cold and expensive and painful in other ways.

TL;DR: get foam tape and pack it around the inside of the boot around the outside of the ankle/lower calf area.
Jan 10 2013 1:07AM
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