Foot orthoses are widely used to treat a range of biomechanical ailments of the foot and lower leg. These foot supports are inserts which are worn in the footwear in an attempt to modify alignment of the foot in such a way that they help conditions in the foot and leg. These problems vary from, for example, plantar fasciitis in the heel to medial stress syndrome that can occur in the legs of runners. All the research evidence shows that the clinical outcomes with foot orthoses are likely to be beneficial and most people that have foot orthotics are satisfied with them. Nevertheless, foot orthoses are only ever be any good if you in fact wear them. You do need to have proper shoes to wear them in and use them enough for the problem they were used for to resolve.
One of the difficulties with foot orthotics is that you simply need to use them in shoes. This can be a dilemma if you don't like using shoes or reside in a hot environment in which the wearing of shoes is difficult. In these climates people like wearing jandals (known as ‘thongs’ in Australia) which you can simply not wear with a foot orthotic. There are several options that you can get. Among those is to limit the time that you are not using the foot orthoses, so that you wear shoes with the foot supports enough and do not wear the sandals too much so that the painful problem does not occur. Another option is to use such things as the arch support sandals or jandals like the Archies Flip Flops from Australia. These have some arch support included in them and can typically be used instead of foot orthoses. Shoes much like the Archies will most likely not be as effective as an adequately made foot orthotic, but they would be more than satisfactory to supplement them and use when the proper footwear can't or will not be worn.