Monkey toes

August 7, 2009 8:20 AM

Is it possibly for your toes to get longer as you age? My toes are freaking me out.

Okay, so I understand that as you age your feet can get wider and sort of flatten out. But that's not my problem. I'm forty years old and in the past two years I've gone up half a shoe size. It's not that my feet are any wider. The shoes are just too short. My toes are jamming up against the front. And they LOOK longer too. They were already long and weirdly prehensile to begin with. My podiatrist just laughed at me. Obviously it's not a serious concern, because there's a simple solution - buy bigger shoes - but I'm curious.

posted by Evangeline to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

No, but it's possible for your toes to get thinner.
posted by kldickson at 8:31 AM on August 7, 2009

is it possible that your shoe size has increased because your arches have flattened?
posted by phil at 8:44 AM on August 7, 2009

Are these your old shoes that are suddenly too short, or new shoes you're trying on? If it's the latter, it may just be sizing differences. I used to wear an 8 and now I'm almost always a 7.5 or 7 (except for some Bass shoes I bought recently, where the 8 was just barely big enough and almost too narrow for my already narrow feet).
posted by katemonster at 8:44 AM on August 7, 2009

I'm going to suggest something that is probably off-base, just for the heck of it. Have you outgrown your existing shoes, or do you find the old shoes still fit but you have to buy a different size? I have found that my shoe size has changed several times (down half a size in my early twenties, up a half a size about four years ago) even though all my old shoes still fit. When I asked the women I knew, they said they'd noticed a difference in their shoe sizes too, so I assumed shoe sizes had undergone some sort of mass correction.

Of course, from the way you've phrased your question, I get the idea your old shoes no longer fit, but just throwing it out there just in case.
posted by orange swan at 8:46 AM on August 7, 2009

Response by poster: You know, I haven't actually gone back and tried on my old shoes. I'll have to do that. And maybe sizing has changed, but it's so consistent - it doesn't matter what label the shoe is, it's too short.

Interesting idea about the arches. I'm just not sure. I have had problems with my feet constantly in the last few years. Plantar fasciitis, a stress fracture, now a bunion... they're not good feet.
posted by Evangeline at 8:51 AM on August 7, 2009

Well your will get (slightly) bigger in general as you age. You'll also get (slightly) shorter.

Gravity sucks.
posted by rokusan at 9:13 AM on August 7, 2009

(+ "feet")
posted by rokusan at 9:13 AM on August 7, 2009

Best answer: As you age, "the scores of ligaments and tendons that hold together the 26 bones and 33 joints in each foot become stretched, resulting in feet that are wider and longer."
posted by stefanie at 9:39 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]

Have you had any kids? It's common for feet to grow during pregnancy, as the ligaments stretch and never bounce back.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:50 AM on August 7, 2009

Perhaps you could take measurements of your toes, and maybe even make a tracing on a piece of paper? At least that way you'd have a baseline to compare to, if you still feel like your toes are growing 6 months from now, or whenever.
posted by vytae at 10:27 AM on August 7, 2009

I think that this may be the time in your life to take up knitting while you're doing other things with your hands.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:12 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I just held a pen in my toes and tried to write my name. I got the first two letters, but the "s" was impossible.
posted by Evangeline at 11:29 AM on August 7, 2009

2nding wondering if your arches have fallen or if you have loosened ligaments. My feet have gone up two shoe sizes since I was 20. Yes, I do have flat feet.
posted by 6:1 at 9:34 AM on August 8, 2009