I'm 17 and I noticed I have intoeing when I walk, is it serious?

I don’t think a slight turning of your feet is anything serious if you’re not in pain

You can correct it yourself with attention and practice. I did. My son did.

For years, every normal step I took caused me pain. But it was worth it. I don’t toe in any more, and it no longer hurts. Walking with one foot that swings in seriously compromises your style.

I had that with my left foot when I was younger. I had foot surgery (for an unrelated issue) and it’s been gone since. Very odd – maybe it just needed rest?

I walk like a duck (or for a prettier metaphor, a ballerina). My feet turn out so that when I stand with my legs together my feet make a ‘V’. It is not so much so that I am bow-legged etc… It’s just a slight turn of the feet. Like you I can turn them straight but it feels weird. I also tend to have less flexibility when I turn my feet straight. I also find that when wearing certain shoes my feet tend to point straighter (shoes like high heels). My doctors have never been worried about it. And to be honest neither have I. I was told that you can self-correct if you wish to but I have never had the desire to do so. I would suggest asking your doctor but personally I wouldn’t worry about it.

@redpowerlady I am also rather duck-footed, but I have been told that I should try to walk straighter, because I walk almost entirely on the outsides of my feet. I am not sure if that is related with my duck footed style, but it is something to note.

@RPL, how great to see you back!

@Jeruba Thanx!

@ekans I’m not a podiatrist and I really don’t know how walking on the sides of your feet creates bad health effects. Could you enlighten us? It might be helpful information to this thread.

@RedPowerLady My walking style makes me twist my ankle often, making my ankles weak, and more prone to twisting.
Aside from that, I wear out shoes really quickly, because almost all of the pressure is on one side of my foot. Anybody looking at the bottoms of my shoes can see that the grips on one side are almost completely worn down, and the other side looks like I just bought the shoes.

@ekans I had the same problem, particulary in my pre-teen years. But now as an adult I rarely twist my ankle. I think I just adapted. I also learned how to choose shows that helped avoid twisting my ankle.

Now the wearing out of shoes must be a pain in the butt!

yeah, New Balance shoes seem to help for my ankle. I try to avoid expensive shoes because I know that they will just wear out. also, I see expensive shoes as a waste of money, but that is unrelated. Picking shoes is also a problem because I have really wide feet, but that is another issue.
at least my feet aren’t like my brother’s; he has feet so big that there usually aren’t more than two pairs of shoes in a normal shoe store that fit him.

@ekans Okay I have really wide feet too and there are size 10, haha. I find that women’s cut shoes work really well for me and tennis shoes seem to make the problem worse. Not sure why that is. I don’t buy expensive either, lol.

@ekans I have the same problem, but mine comes from the adaptation that I had due to the lessened flexibility in my feet due to my bones growing together (lovely, isn’t it?). That’s the cause of almost all my many sprains (the two pairs of crutches I’ve owned, the multiple orthopedic devices…). You can see on my flip flops that get squished over time that I use the outside of my foot more than the inside (my orthopedist would love if I would only wear tennis shoes, I compromise by wearing Sketchers ballet flats when “real shoes” are required and flip flops in the summer). Have they looked at your feet to see if there’s something going on with the lack of flexibility that makes injuries out of bobbles that other people would recover from?

@julia999 Nope, you should be good as long as you’re not getting injuries from walking “oddly.”

Ok thanks everyone for your answers!!