Moszkito footbeds

Last semester, I purchased some shoes for clinicals that looked really cool but didn't hold up well. Every time I stepped down in them, I could feel the middle of my foot crushing down toward the floor. By the end of a 6-hour student shift, my feet were aching. So, over Christmas break, I tried to figure out what to do about it. I don't think I have a diagnosable problem like flat arches or pronation, but it did seem like the pain was coming from lack of support. So, I decided to try orthotic insoles.

I wasn't sure which company to try, so I ordered several pairs of insoles from Zappos.com. The ones I settled on were these Moszkito brand rigid (red logo) insoles. I decided on Moszkito for several reasons:

• They offer a much greater range of sizes than any other brand.
• They are made out of PVC with a lifetime warranty, so they won't "deform" as I walk on them. (The SuperFeet insoles I tried said you would have to replace them, like, every year or so.
• When I called the company to ask a question, I got to speak with a man named Lauren who answered all my questions very directly and spent a really long time on the phone with me.

Now for the review:

After wearing them in clinicals for a couple weeks, I find they are not quite what I was hoping, but I don't think it's the fault of the insoles. Moszkito has different sizing parameters--length of foot, width of foot, height of arch. Although I was thinking I had high arches based on the outline of my wet footprint and the measurement I took of my arch, I can feel the insole under my arch after I have been standing on it long enough. (This means that instead of getting rid of the pain, the insoles have just distributed the pain to a different location.) Salesman Lauren told me that this problem might be caused by the insoles being too wide. According to him, the heel is the most important part of the shoe, and if the heel doesn't fit, the foot won't fit correctly either. A heel descending on a wide shoebed will sort of spread out and allow the rest of the foot to spread/move as well. It certainly makes sense to me that, if a heel spreads out, the arch will get lower. Anyhow, the problem with his suggestion is that when I had a size narrower insole, I could feel the edge of the insole rubbing on the bottom of my heel. At first I thought that wouldn't bother me, but after you have been on your feet awhile, it doesn't take much to irritate them.

Final analysis: compared with other insoles, Moszkito was the best. However, they may not clear up your problem with sore feet. Get shoes with better support (i.e., more padding) first...
Moszkito homepage
Moszkito on Zappos.com