As a Physical Therapist, I have worked with dozens of different hammer toe correction products, toe spacers, toe straighteners and hallux valgus orthoses. In order to determine my tolerance, I wore this device around the house (in my slippers without a sock) for a few hours over two days. It felt fine, so on the third day I wore it to work under my usual cotton sock and loafer style shoe. The entire day the product was comfortable and it worked perfectly, it stabilized my second toe and prevented it from crossing over onto the first toe. My skin looked fine when I removed it after 12 hours of wear on a hot NYC day, but then moments later the area of my foot that was in contact with this product developed an intractable itch. I have never experienced and itch like this, it was incredibly intense and unrelenting. After a few minutes of scratching without relief, I noticed the itchy area that was in contact with this product felt slightly tacky, evidence that the itch was related to some kind of adhesive residue left behind by this product. The itch remained even after I vigorously scrubbed the area with soap and water, so I scrubbed it with 91% isopropyl alcohol which removed the adhesive and relieved the itch. I thought the adhesive was a superficial remnant of the manufacturing process, so I attempted to wash it out with soap and water but that only made things worse. The water liquefied the adhesive, which turned the entire product into a wet sticky mess. The Pedifix Double-Toe Straightener is described as having "dual layer foam padding". As I was washing it the two layers of foam padding split apart. After the split it became evident that this was the origin of the adhesive because the bottom side of the upper pad was covered with an extremely sticky substance. Apparently the two layers of foam are attached together by an adhesive. Other than the adhesive itch, this product was comfortable and kept my second toe in place, so I really wanted to salvage it. The adhesive was only on the upper pad, so my plan was to remove the adhesive from the upper pad then sew the two pads back together.So I soaked the upper pad in hot soapy water overnight but the adhesive remained, even after I repeatedly wrung it out. Then I soaked the pad in 91% isopropyl alcohol for 12 hours but the adhesive remained, so I gave up. I removed the elastic toe loops and threw out the top pad. This adhesive problem was a minor inconvenience to me, but it could potentially be a very dangerous situation for someone with peripheral vascular disease, diabetes, or any other disease that causes impaired lower extremity circulation. The reason I gave this product a two star rating is because it did keep my toe straight and I managed to salvage this adhesive nightmare. I attached the elastic toe loops to the adhesive free lower piece of foam, then stitched a piece of adhesive free moleskin to the bottom. A number of reviewers who used this product reported pain. As a PT I feel compelled to weight in on that issue. As the product info states, this product is only appropriate for flexible deformities, but there's more to it than that. The likelihood of developing pain is directly proportional to the length of time the wearer had the deformity. In other words, the longer a person has had an overlapping toe, the more likely that person will experience pain or discomfort when they use any device that attempts to correct it. In addition, age can also be a factor when considering tolerance. Generally speaking, the likelihood of discomfort is going to be greater if someone implements the correction at age 70, than if they implement it at age 40.
