aNY THRU HIKERS have this problem after a thru hike? I finished 9/10 and my feet are still having bouts with swelling and aching. Is this my feet shrinking back to my normal/prehike shoe size? I have alot of pain on the bottom of my feet. It feels better when I actually walk on them for a couple hours. Any reccomendations to aliveate this pain will be appreciated.
Spigot
I had this even just after the JMT. After a few days it turned to tingling, and only after about 2 months did it completely go away. No suggestions from me…but i’d be interested to h ear.
markv
Our feet hurt for months after our '01 hike on the AT. Bruised bones and pounded flesh. Ice and heat, Vitamin I, time. Sorry. It took ours about two to three months to feel better. We have hard wood floors in the house and they were murder getting out of bed each morning. Like the end of a twenty-five mile day in the first two feet from the bed. It’ll get better. Be patient.
BW
As said above, your feet are not going to go back to your “old” size! Unfortunately, you’ll have to get all new shoes.
One thing that I’ve found really helpful is wearing those I guess you might call them shower shoes, with the little hard rubber/plastic nubbies you step on. I do have to wear sox with them, but just wearing them around for a little while is marvelous!
Instead of a tennis ball, you can also get a little, I think it’s called “Foot Rubz”, ball with the same kind of little nubbies to roll around under your foot. Hey, works for me, and I have a lot of foot…:tongue
P.S. I’ve seen the shoes by Nike or Adidda$, but I got them at Rite Aid on sale for about $6. That was last summer though. 
Lady Di
I can’t believe that all you folks’ feet are bigger now. It has been 6 years and mine are still the size 11 that they always were. I did, however, spend a lot of time on my feet before the hike… exercising and practicing on my teams and working… maybe that has something to do with it.
I also wear a lot of heels… hummmmm
windex
I find that IcyHot or BenGay help to dampen the pain in my feet after a long day. I used this and wrappings to cure the swelling when I had shin splints.
As for your foot size, maybe it will shrink back and maybe not. I had no elongation problems during AT94, but my feet grew almost 2 sizes during AT04. When I went to TrailDays '04 I got custom Superfeet and that brought my pods back to a reasonable size 10.5 during the hike. Post-hike, my feet returned to their old size 10.
Currently, having just finished PCT07 my feet are somewhere between 10 and 10.5 (I used Superfeet the whole trip). My arches are sore so I am tending towards the outside of my feet and walking with my toes turned in. The skin under my big toes, balls and heels of my feet is white-ish from pounding all the blood out and is hardening into a shell and starting to peel off. Other than that, they feel great! I suspect that I will be back into a size 10 within a month.
30-30
Spigot. You need to go see a foot doctor.
My believe is that you have stress fractures in your feet. I’m guessing both feet. Do your feet give you alot of pain when you wake up in the morning and take your first steps? If yes, my guess is you have a stress fractor. This is a classic sign of stress fractures. A stress fracture is a very small crack in the bone. Sometimes xrays cannot detect stress fractures. They are very painful. Yours sounds like you may have been hiking on them for sometime. Taking pain pills would cover up some of the pain, hiking and getting blood moving around the stress break would remove some pain.
This pain could last for 4-6 weeks. You stress fractures need to heal. Take ‘Aleve’ when you wake up, 2-3 pills. Elevate your feet at night while sleeping. You can ice them down to keep them from swelling. I would suggest doing this before going to sleep. Put your feet in ice cold water, with some ice cubes. Do this no more than 20 minutes.
Your feet are in bad shape, stay off them as much as possible. Wear shoes that have cushion. Elevate them as much as possible. Stretching will help as well. If no improvement in 4-6 weeks, go see a foot doctor.
Bilko
thanks everyone,
My feet are slowly healing. I have been elevating my feet when sleeping/chillin, I have also been massaging them when they hurt. I am still going to try the tennis ball idea. As for taking pain meds, I am refraining from those because I was eating them like candy the last two weeks of my hike, I think my stomach needs a rest from them. As for foot doc, I don’t have med insurance so thats completely out of the question. I will look into stress fractures but I don’t think I would be able to walk if I had stress breaks. I think it is only bruised bones and muscular aches I am having. I’ve been really wanting to go out on a long run/jog but I will problaby wait a few more weeks to get into that. Thanks for the suggestions and keep them coming, there are hikers coming off the trail almost everyday now and I’m sure they will appreciate all this great input too.
Spigot