Michelle Tzonov’s feet had always treated her well.
A massage therapist in San Diego, Tzonov spent long days standing as she worked on clients.
Very athletic, she ran several miles two or three times a week.
“I was born with normal feet,” Tzonov says.
“I just thought they weren’t pretty enough.”
They were ugly but not painful.
Still, Tzonov grew to hate the way her feet bulged out of her sandals.
“I had to buy extra-wide shoes,” she says.
And when I did, they never looked good."
By her late 20s, Tzonov had had enough: She headed to a podiatrist for cosmetic surgery.
The foot came out slimmer and straighter.
“He cleared out the excess cartilage in my right foot,” Tzonov says.
“But somehow that messed up my joint: It made bone scrape against bone.
It looked fine, but eventually that joint became painful and arthritic.”
So Tzonov sought yet another surgeon to correct both problems.
“As soon as he took off the cast, I knew something was wrong,” Tzonov says.
And the pain was excruciating.
She couldn’t even bear to have the bedcovers touch her foot.
Tzonov wouldn’t be able to stand or walk without crutches for nearly a year.
And she worried she might never work in her chosen profession again.
“If I’d known what I’d go through, I never would have headed down this road.
I started out thinking my feet were ugly when they weren’t.
And now they really are.”
First one ankle wobbles, the other buckles and then whoops!
She’s down with legs splayed and showing the front row a view up to her navel.
Luckily, the only thing damaged was her pride.
When models go home, they’re invariably wearing flats.
Yet podiatrists say demand for cosmetic foot surgery has increased significantly.
“Today’s shoes are beautiful, so women want their feet to be, too.”
“Getting women back in their heels is what I aim for,” she says.
Nobody wants to abandon her gorgeous heels forever.
“It’s OK to indulge once in a while; it makes life worth living.
But if you do it all the time, there will be consequences.”
And wearing high heels can permanently shorten the Achilles tendon, meaning the foot can never lie flat.
Call itSex and the Citysyndrome.
They get caught up in what looks pretty and forget about the biomechanical complications that can follow."
“They might think their feet are ugly, but the flaws are in their mind.
“The foot is a marvel of bioengineering,” he says.
“People don’t understand how complex it is.”
Each foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 tendons, muscles and ligaments.
And for every mile we walk, we exert some 100,000 pounds of pressure on our feet.
“This trend is a very scary one.
Destroy a foot, and you could destroy a person’s quality of life.”
“My foot was deformed and enormous from the swelling,” Tzonov says.
“And I was in such awful pain.”
X-rays revealed the bones had been left jagged, which caused the inflammation.
“The doctor just shook his head.
He wouldn’t even attempt to repair it and told Tzonov her problems were likely to be permanent.
Cosmetic or not, all surgery carries riskseven more so when you are operating on the foot.
“Foot surgery is different from a nose job or face-lift,” Dr. Dreeben says.
“You don’t put all your weight on your face.
Feet are very resilient in the weight bearing they do, but they are also very delicate.
If you tamper with them, you’re asking for trouble.”
It can also cause circulatory problems, with gruesome results: amputation of a part of the foot.
Levine defends her use of poly-L-lactic acid, saying it has few side effects.
They can also trigger chronic nerve pain that’s impossible to reverse.
There are no medical-journal articles substantiating that these injections will decrease pain.
And until there is, surgeons shouldn’t do this procedure.”
The result is osteoarthritis of the knees, back problems and more.
The physician continues to practice, and other women risk falling prey to malpractice.
As for Quinn’s client?
“She must wear flats now and not the high heels she loved so much,” he says.
And there’s the thing:We really do love our shoes.
“Overall, you look sexier.
But it’s a bit like having your feet bound the way they used to in China.”
She pauses, then laughs.
“Until the next time I wear them.”
Green loved to dance for hours in her 6-inch heels.
She trudged through November weather in New York wearing only flip-flops.
“It was freezing, but I’d rather be cold than in agony,” she says.
Green had surgery on that foot last December to shave down the spurs and correct the bunion.
“I was told I will take a year to fully heal,” Green says.
“The scars on my big toe are sensitive if anything hugs them.
When I’m riding the subway, I’m terrified someone will step on my feet.”
Will she eventually go back to wearing heels?
“Yes,” she says, laughing.
“I was just thinking about that.
If this pain would only go away, I could do it.”
Ask Levine, the owner of 325 pairs of heels and counting.
“I even wear low heels in the operating room,” she says.
“I’m 5 feet 4 inches tallI love wearing them.
Taller people are perceived as more empowered, and they make more money.
It’s not about attracting men.
I wear heels to maintain my femininity in a man’s world.
Most of the women I treat feel the same way.”
But even she draws the line at anything over 4 inches.
“Women need to understand that 5- to 6-inch heels are limousine shoes,” she says.
“They see Gwyneth Paltrow wearing them and think they can, too.
It’s not reality for the rest of us.”
Good design in a shoe makes all the difference.
And Kenneth Cole’s new 925 Technology Silver Edition line has flaxseed pillows to support arches.
Beyond better shoes, plenty of non-surgical options exist to make over your feet.
“Drugstore inserts can also be an excellent starting point,” Dr. Dreeben says.
If all else fails, an operation may be necessary, Dr. Dreeben says.
“But if it is just cosmetic, don’t do it,” she warns.
“The risks are too great.”
But mechanically, my foot is the best it will be.”
She’ll likely never run again; it irritates her foot.
Her right foot rarely hurts these days, but that doesn’t mean she has no pain.
Physical therapy, swimming and steroid shots helped for a time, but the pain has gotten worse lately.
“And once your gait is affected, your whole body is affected.
I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.”
Additional reporting by Kathy Maloney
Photo Credit: Bill Diodato
