[Cirobi]

I'd say go with what makes you the most comfortable. I personally have always been about comfort in clothing which is what has led me to wear some less feminine clothes at times. I'm a big sneaker person and pre-op always stuck with shoes that had the lowest heel possible, preferably non-existent which can be tough when you need to find cheap shoes that don't hurt you! I consider myself lucky in that I never had to go to a pair of orthotics, but I did wear completely flat bottomed shoes (i.e. Airwalks) because I did find that even though I'm not flat footed, some of the arch support in other sneakers bothered my feet. It may also be that you got so used to that one type of shoe that your body just isn't used to alternate types. I know women in my office complain about that kind of thing if they normally wear heels and then try to wear flats.

Since you're still in the healing process, it might be worth it to alternate which shoe type you wear. Maybe do two days of the new balance shoes and two days of the other shoes so that you're still testing yourself but have a comfort zone to go back to when you're sore.

~Sara