The Do's and Don'ts of Wearing High Heels

Shine from Yahoo!—June 11, 2013

While Carrie Bradshaw and the rest of her lady friends on Sex And The City make walking in heels 24/7 look like a cakewalk, in real life we should know better.

According to a recent survey released by the College Of Podiatry, 2,000 women (and men!) reported foot pain within an hour of wearing their heels. At least 20 percent reported that the pain begins within 10 minutes and a third reported walking home barefoot after a night of dancing.

The best way to kill the foot pain is to simply not wear heels. But, who (us included!) is going to do that? Instead, we reached out to Dr. Rock Positano, Director of the Non-surgical Foot And Ankle Service Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, for the do's and don'ts when it comes to wearing some of our favorite heels.

DO always purchase your heels later in the day and not early in the morning.

"Your foot is at its most swollen point early in the morning and you won't get as a good a fit as say, later in the afternoon," explained Dr. Positano.

DON'T wear heels that are 3-inches or higher for long periods of time.

If you're going to wear that shoe, try to sit down longer and not walk around constantly. The ideal height you should stick with is 1-2 inches, recommends Dr. Positano.

"Almost 90 percent of women are wearing shoes that are at least one to two sizes too small," Dr. Positano says. As strange it sounds, your foot size will change more than once throughout your lifetime, especially right after you've had a baby.

DON'T be a member of the Cinderella Complex party.

"The Cinderella Complex is when women do things like try to fit a size 9 foot into a size 7 shoe," explained Dr. Positano. "When you do this with high heels, you've got a prescription for disaster."

DO soak your feet in cold water every night.

If you are suffering from swollen, painful feet, soak your feet or run cold water over them for about 10 minutes. "I recommend this for patients who are very active because it helps to reduce inflammation and swelling in the feet," Dr. Positano said.

Kim Kardashian showcases her swollen feet in strappy shoes. DON'T wear high, narrow pencil-thin heels or straps that cut into your feet.

Besides the fact that these type of shoes can give you the worst foot pain ever, after wearing them for long periods of time, they can also lead to serious heel, calf, hip and lower back problems, Dr. Positano says.

This story originally appeared at shine.yahoo.com.