When High Heels Hurt, Try These ‘Pillows’ for Your Feet

Anyone who has ever worn high heels knows that tingly ball-of-foot pain that happens after a few hours. That pain can ruin your night out on the town and can leave your feet aching for days. There are endless products and shoe inserts out there that promise to ease the pain of wearing high heels all night. Many don’t deliver on their promise of a pain-free evening dancing the night away in a pair of stilettos. But a few actually do help.

Related: 4 Ways to Ease the Pain of High Heels

One of these products is called “Pillows For Your Feet.” Developed by top New York City podiatric surgeon Dr. Suzanne Levine, this product does something many other inserts don’t — it adheres to the foot instead of the shoe, ensuring a secure fit.

A Closer Look at the Product

The soft gel pad could be used for the ball of the foot or as arch support for flats. Not only do they reduce foot pain, but back, knee and hip pain as well. They also ease foot cramping, and they can help keep you from forming calluses.

Dr. Levine knows a thing or two about foot pain. From the age of two, she was undergoing surgeries for severe bowlegs and very wide feet with sagging arches. Due to her condition, she was slow to learn how to walk and was confined to ugly orthopedic shoes until the age of 16. Beautiful shoes and heels became a lifelong obsession, and as a respected podiatric surgeon she created procedures and products that she could also use.

How Dr. Levine Developed the Idea

Dr. Levine developed “Pillows For Your Feet” inserts after her signature procedure — an injection of poly-L-lactic acid into the balls of the feet. The procedure creates a soft filler at the bottom of the foot that reduces pain from wearing high heels.

“I have [celebrities] that come in for touch-ups right before the Emmys and Academy Awards,” Dr. Levine told the New York Post. “A lot of socialites do it before benefit season . . . You don’t see anybody walking around those parties in sensible-looking shoes!”

The “Pillows For Your Feet” inserts, however, are a far more affordable and less invasive option.

Danielle Tarasiuk

Danielle Tarasiuk is a multimedia journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work has been published on AllDay.com, Yahoo! Sports, KCET, and NPR-affiliate stations KPCC and KCRW. She’s a proud Sarah Lawrence College and USC Annenberg alumn.

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