Why you should pay attention to this:   Rocker-soled shoes are a relatively recent fad among patients with chronic lower extremity joint pain, particularly knee pain.  This study evaluated the effect of these shoes on joint stress patterns and patient pain.  It found that although the shoes did reduce stress into the medial (inner) side of the knee, this did not have any immediate effect on pain with walking.  Lack of pain relief is not particularly surprising, considering that the subjects did not wear these shoes for a sustained period of time, but a previous study using MBT rocker soled shoes in arthritis patients over 12 weeks did not result in pain relief.  The best we can say is that Sketchers appear to reduce some of the stress in the medial knee in arthritis patients.  Whether this results in improvements in pain remains to be seen.  Against this is the potential for gait unsteadiness in elderly patients who might wear these shoes, which has also been borne out in some studies.  Our advice is to find other means of arthritis relief.

If you are having problems with pain from osteoarthritis, there are many other effective ways to keep your pain controlled without surgery.  Give us a call at (515) 221-1102 to find out more.

Wearing rocker-soled tennis shoes does not have a significant effect on pain from knee arthritis.  Want to read the article? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24870566