We know humans are not perfectly symmetrical, in fact when I studied computer animation 20 years ago, we learnt how our human eye detects a face as unreal when it’s too perfect! It’s the small imperfections that make us human.
So although we may see some of those differences easily in the mirror, you might not notice the difference in something like your leg length. I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for a physiotherapist I saw in London around 2000-2002 who pointed it out to me. I think at the time I felt a bit of a freak, how could I not notice I had weird legs! Except you don’t notice, I was told it was the difference of about 1cm and since it had always been there everything felt normal to me. In fact a lot of people have this difference, including David Beckham and it hasn’t held him back.
There was no mention at the time of what effect that could have on my posture, my other joints or whether it would cause pain, so I paid no attention to it and carried on.
It wasn’t until 2011, just after my diagnosis for Ankylosing Spondylitis, that it was suggested that improving the arch on my feet may improve my stance and posture, therefore improving the shape of my spine and possibly reducing pain caused as a result of flat footedness, if such a word exists.
So I went to Alexandra Sports in Portsmouth, a specialist in sports wear and footwear who stocked insoles. I bought a pair in my size range and using scissors, trimmed the ends of the insoles where the toes would be to fit my shoes.
I wore these for a whole Summer, they’re comfortable and discreet but take up a lot of space in your shoes, so no thick socks! On the whole I didn’t notice any measurable difference and by winter I changed to wearing boots anyway which didn’t have the room once I had my winter socks on.
So fast forward now to August 2016 and I had been living with a degree of left hip joint pain for a couple of weeks before my phsio appointment at Portsmouth’s QA hospital. I couldn’t seem to shift it with the Naproxin, so I asked if my physio could check the length of my leg. After all, I had only been told by one person in the past about the difference so it made sense to get a second opinion.
Without a clue, she confirmed one leg was longer and by about 1cm. So it was true, but could this be the source of my left hip joint inflammation?
I decided to try my insoles again, but just on one side. the photo below shows my shoes and right insole.
Hopefully this would level up my hips and reduce the pressure on my left hip joint.
It felt extremely odd to start with, as if I had two pairs of socks on one foot or as if walking along the kerb like kids do, one foot in the road, one on the pavement! But like any new filling or tooth chip that feels really noticeable to start with, you soon get used to it.
At the end of the week, the inflammation had gone. Great right? But would it have gone anyway? would it come back if I took the insole out?
Weeks later and having switched to winter shoes leaving the insole in my summer shoes, general left hip inflammation for me is not directly caused by uneven legs or it would be with me everyday at the moment.
Perhaps on longer walks or when power in the legs is required like jumping down from a height or pushing and pulling heavy pallets around, my left hip with it’s longer leg could be taking the brunt of the pressure and therefore be more likely to become inflamed. Something to monitor there….
What may be of interest to other folks in a similar situation, is that my physio had an exercise for an uneven hip, sadly I’ve lost the diagram of the ‘hip shift’ as I think it was called and internet searches brought back all sorts of odd results for that string of text, so I’ll try and get my hands on another copy and post it later.