[te_chris]

I wear nothing but minimal shoes day to day. I find them so much better. I used to have precision manufactured orthotics etc, then went to another podiatrist one day who had moved to specialise in barefoot. She basically said "your feet are fine, try these shoes out and see how it goes". It went great.

TBC on running, I have tight achilles and need to put in a lot of prep work to be able to run without pain so cbf. Day to day though, give vivobarefoot or something a shot - I have 7 pairs. They're great.

[aeyes]

If you have tight Achilles a high drop shoe will help a lot because it takes the load off the Achilles.

[allears]

I have almost the exact same story. I'm not a runner (I was a jogger when I was younger), but my unusually flat feet had me wearing orthotics most of my life, and the podiatrists kept prescribing thicker and more extreme orthotics. Finally, a physical therapist I was seeing (not for foot problems) suggested I try "barefoot" (zero rise, minimal support) shoes, and go barefoot as much as possible, also try to be conscious of using my arch muscles to avoid pronating as I walked. tl;dr: Haven't worn orthotics since, no more foot problems. My favorite brand is Merrell.