Toe straighteners or toe correctors or toe spacers or toe braces or correct toes or whatever you want to call them are being used more often than in the past. They come in a variety of different designs and types with a lot of variation between them.

The purpose of these toe straighteners are to obviously straighten the toes! As you can see above, the left one tries to straighten them by pulling down on the toe from above whereas the one on the left tries to straighten and separate the toes to spread them. This spreading is particularly helpful if you spend all day in tight footwear. As to which toe straightener you should use, it could depend on the nature of the problem that we are trying to correct. The one on the left will also fit better into the shoes whereas the one on the right will only fit into shoes that have the room. It may be better to use the one on the right as more of a night splint.

The main use for these toe straighteners are to use on toes that are cramped into shoes all day. They are helpful for hammer toes and claw toes and the one on the right can be particularly useful for conditions like a Morton’s neuroma.

At the end of the day, if you wear shoes, you will probably benefit from one or both of these types of toe straighteners to counter some of the forces that the shoes apply to the foot to deform them. Get in touch with us if you want more advice on this.