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When I was 18 in college, I picked up a friend from her work and took her to get fingerprinted (financial business). On the way back to my car I tickled her and her drove her stiletto down into my barefoot. My baby toe bone split lengthwise. It was winter and I couldn't wear shoes.

Sounds very festive! And nice to receive the compliments!

So sorry to hear this, those boots are beautiful. I have the same difficulty, 4" heels no problem, 5" heels are a problem for extended wear. I finally found a pair of black nine west stiletto booties with 5" heels that were comfortable and fairly easy to walk in. I was on cloud nine until I broke one of the heels from walking so much. Needless to say, nine west discontinued this particular style, but I did manage to find another pair used. Don't give up Gige!

I haven't seen MJ active lately, but haven't looked that hard. Hoping to see more of your great pics/boots here, or perhaps on another site where you are active. All the best. D

Same here, love wearing women's jeans, just fit better. My only complaint are the useless pockets! It is great to hear from you again here for sure! Always dreamed of owning a great pair of Western Ranch boots from years ago, should have sprung for a pair back then. I do have a few pairs of MJ boots, not overly impressed. To be fair, they were "returns", or orders that were never shipped. Love my light colored pair with the 5" heels, but they are tough to walk in for any distance, should have stuck with 4" heels. I would give MJ boots another chance though for sure. They were reasonably priced, well constructed, good leather, and looked great.

Yes, I have a similar issue from just standing in my boots.

That reminds me of a story about “bunny boots” - the heavy white rubber boots issued by the US Antarctic Program and which they neurotically require to be worn. I like boots as a rule but I loathed those. Heavy, clumsy, like cartoon character boots they were extremely warm and utterly unbreathable. Horrible things. I was on assignment at McMurdo, South Pole and multiple USAP field camps one (Antarctic) summer and was issued a pair of those. I’d brought my own pair of quite nice Scarpa mountaineering boots and was forever getting into trouble for wearing those instead of the mandated bunny boots. I vividly remember arriving at some remote field camp and the second I climbed out of the helicopter having some military type screaming at me for not wearing proper footwear. My Scarpa mountaineering boots were a million times better than those ghastly white things that were literally designed for 1940s army polar expeditions

This might explain in part why my feet have actually gotten smaller over the last 10 years. Not a lot, but certainly noticeable with picky fitting women's shoes. I am now solidly a size 9/size 40. Used to be more like a 9 1/2. 9 1/2 these days is always too big, even in boots. Not only do I wear heels, but I do arch strengthening exercises every day, twice a day. I just had a go-round with safety last week. A junior safety guy finally noticed after 9 months that I wasn't wearing steel toes. He wouldn't let it go. I threatened to drag. The head safety guy came to visit me about an hour later, and said basically, "Well, if nobody has noticed in 9 months, I'd just let it ride. Just pretend that never happened." At least I don't have to worry about it until the next project now.

I’ve had back troubles in the past - a ruptured disc a long time ago - and have found that heels really help. Not really high heels - I don’t think 10 or 12cm would help, certainly not 12cm! But 8cm chunky heels are really good. When I had a kid I had a toe injury that had a very beneficial side effect! I was goofing around, running through the house (aged about 12j and managed to break my little toe on the leg of a table. It hurt. My foot swelled up and I couldn’t wear my shoes. It was winter and my mother had a pair of mid heel knee boots that I could get my foot into. And so my mother lent them to me. I was delighted. I secretly wished I could wear knee boots and here was my opportunity. I had sure to take a long time healing. But then winter ended and I had to give up my borrowed boots. Looking back I realise that nobody - not a soul - commented in my wearing mid heel women’s knee boots. There it was - an open possibility to wear heels

I can see where high heels would actually be good for the foot. I recently had to get some work boots and decided to get professionally fitted for them. It was found out that my feet have gone from a size 9 to size ten. When I asked how that could be the guy told me its because my feet are flattening out and so my feet are getting longer, but also thinner. So I could see where with heels, and your arch being formed solidity, it might actually help your feet, especially against backpain. I once worked at a job where we had to wear steel toed boots with steel metatarsal plates and EVERYONE went to a chiropractor. It protected your feet from dropped steel, but also kept your foot from flexing with each step. Add in 10 hour days and something had to give and for all of us, it was our backs.

It sure doesn't get better with time. Hopefully we can enjoy our heels for a long time to come, even if there are some drawbacks. I thankfully don't have any issues so far.

I think you did great! For not being used to them, spending a day in them with all the walks you had is quite an accomplishment 🙂 I'm not surprised that you felt it all over your body. I'm fine in 13 cm heels, but I never wore anything higher than a 11 cm heel to the office. Sure I could wear 12 cm heels, but with all the walking before, meanwhile, and after the office I definitely also would feel it! I'm sure with just a little more practice you'll be fine in your 5" boots. You can join us in the "aiming high" topic 🙂 If you'd rather stick to the "normal" heels that's also fine, there's no need to push the limits all the time.

Hey hoverfly!! just logged in here today after a many years hiatus. Still wearing hhboots after all these years! Still wearing Miguel Jones boots and a few pairs of Steve Madden boots. This past week I bought myself a new pair of boots…. Nothing outrageous. Just a pair of Torrid block heel chunky lug ‘hikers’ boots. I’ve always liked chunky heels and cowboy heels all in the 3-4.5” range. I remember a few of the other guys, most with a penchant for wearing heels and other clothes deemed feminine, but who were not trying to be or look like a woman. I still only wear ‘women’s’ jeans because they fit my tall slender body type better. When Levi’s sold out over seas, I finally found Wranglers Q-baby then Shiloh and Willow in 7/8x38 inseam. Also wear 9/10x38. Good to see a few others still at it decades later! tightlevisandhighheelboots!!

Hey yall!! Long time since I visited here. Life has been busy. Probably should change my screen name since Levi’s sold out and no longer carry 38” inseam jeans….. now wear Wrangler Q-Baby or Willow jeans with my boots!! Anyone else had any contact with Miguel since this? I purchased my last pair of many in 2021-2022 around Christmas. They were slow to arrive but I’ve expected that with the Mexico shipping and customs. I have a half dozen pairs of boots and a few shoes all made by Miguel and his team, and all still wearing well, though a few I had to have heel caps replaced and one pair I had a new leather sole installed with a cobbler in alaska. I too have been trying to contact him for some new boots but no success yet. Thanks!! TLAHHBs

I can tell you that toe surgery is not for the faint of heart. I jammed my baby toe and it got stuck in the upright position. They went in and fixed that toe and the toe next to it had a 'hammer toe', so they removed the joint and put wire through both toes. At a farmer's market a woman backed into the wire and I let out a scream everybody at the market hear. But when they pulled the wires out I found a much high octave to scream at. Don't mess with toes.

Hey guys, I will post an update this weekend, it was not at all what was planned but not a total loss and still amazing.

Time and age has its way with us all. I’ve no foot, knee or ankle issues, thankfully, but an old hip injury that flares up periodically. It doesn’t affect my heel wearing - I’d limp no matter what I was wearing, even if I was barefoot, but it’s certainly no fun and I regard it with a sort of disbelief - recalling how not so very long ago I used to routinely cycle 100 mile days (often much more) and before that I used to run marathons in reasonably competing times. I know we all age but somehow I always thoughts they’d make an exception for me …

I have not been forced to stand still for hours since my wife quit doing the "big" farmer's market a couple of years ago, I might have lost some conditioning by now, but I know that at church, I never think about how much I have to stand vs. how much I have to sit. In other news, I had Christmas dinner over at my parents' house, as we do every year, their health permitting. One of the perennial guests is my ex-wife. To explain, the now adult son we had together is always there too. Anyway, my ex-wife was always a heel wearer. Not a high heel wearer, but a regular heel wearer, sporting 2-3" heels several days a week. Not that I would expect her to wear heels to come visit my parents, because she was never really that kind of heely girl, but I had noticed that her shoes have been completely flat for a couple of years. There's a reason for that. I do not know how the subject came up, probably under the general category of "getting old," but she evidently had to have surgery on her left foot because of arthritis in the toe joint. She said before the surgery, it hurt to wear any sort of shoe, heel or not. She showed me how she can't bend her toes anymore into "high heel" position. Oddly enough, my sister has the exact same problem. My sister actually wore 3" block heeled oxfords for Christmas Eve service, but told me she had to get out of them as soon as possible because of the pain in her toe joint. I am writing this because it really hit home. I also have a bit of arthritis in my toe joint, especially my right. Thus far, I have kept it at bay by doing ballet type stretching exercises every morning. But it does make me think that I cannot absolutely count on being able to wear heels forever. Hopefully it will be a couple of decades before I have to give them up, but there is no guarantee.

I second this! It’s been great. I’ve had a pair of very elegant chocolate brown knee boots with 12cm stiletto heels that I love but never wore because my ankles would cramp up within minutes even if I just stood up in them. We’ve been encouraging each other to practice and with this in mi d I’ve been making a point of wearing my 12cm heels regularly - not for long periods but building up slowly. It’s working, not only am I (slowly!) growing used to the lofty 12cm height but practicing in them has given much greater confidence and ability in my 10cm stilettos, which I can now wear and walk about it with an ease I could not have imagined before we started this.

Or you could throw caution to the wind and join @Shyheels, @higherheels, me, et al. in our quest to manage steeper heels in everyday life. I'm sure you've seen the thread "Aiming High" in the Everybody section. We are certainly not up for injuring ourselves, but each of us thinks we can do incrementally better than what we already do. It's a lot of fun!

I will stand and lecture for 3 hours at a time. The balls of my feet will burn by the end, but I will go to reflexology and get my feet worked on every once in a while.

What pair of heels I choose to wear on any given day entirely depends how I feel when I roll out of bed in the morning and what fits as my feet tend to swell a bit while sleeping. Christmas Eve was a "normal" work day for me and when I was deciding what to wear that morning, I felt a strong desire to do "something adventurous" as part of my outfit. I anticipated that the office would be fairly empty for obvious reasons and thus, I decided that the choice of footwear was going to be a "killer" pair of 5" (~12.5cm) beige, block heeled knee boots. I had purchased the boots during the time when I erroneously believed that the higher the heel, the better. It should be noted that the opportune word here is "killer" as that was what they almost did to me! I put together my outfit and following the "normal" morning selfies to document such, I headed out to my car. As I stepped out of my place, I could feel the stress on my knees and ankles from the tall heel but I brushed it off thinking, "I'll be fine as I will not be doing much walking." The walk to my car was a slow one as the heel height very much restricted the length of my stride. I encountered a neighbor along the way and we briefly chatted about "having" to work on Christmas Eve. Admittedly, however, the brief meeting was intoxicating because of the fact that I was wearing a pair of such tall heels out in public and the person who noticing me doing so really did not care about it. This was that which I always wanted to happen. I made my way to my office and took the long and slow walk across the parking lot to the main entrance. Again, I could feel the stress on my knees and ankles, and realized that such tall heels need a slower cadence. The morning when well but at lunch, I decided to head out for a short errand. The first store at which I stopped did not have that for wish I was looking, so I moved on to a second store. As I walked through the aisles of my second stop looking for an item (and noticed some "old-timer" taking a photo of me!) I was in heaven but the discomfort was starting to build. Rather than walk around the store aimlessly as I would normally do so that all of the other shoppers could see me in heels, I found what I needed and headed back to my car. Although I have a habit of parking my vehicle at the rear of any parking lot for many reasons, that day I was regretting doing so as the walk back to my car was rather tough. I made my way back to my office and desk certainly feeling the stress on both knees and ankles. The remainder of the workday was marked by limited walking and by the time I was ready to head home (and after taking two pain relief capsules) my knees and ankles were not "so bad" but now, my mid/lower back was feeling it. At that point, all I wanted to do was get home but I remembered I had a minor error to run while en route. Following such, and a wonderfully given and received compliment from the cashier on my outfit, I arrived home and the boots immediately were removed from my feet. Seemingly, every part of my lower body, as well as mid-back ached from the heels and my back continued to ache for the remainder of the evening. Sadly, I had to promise myself that 4"/10cm is the limit of heel height from this point in time onwards - I just do not think I can handle a heel much taller than that. What is interesting about all of this is that on the previous day, I had a visit with my nurse practitioner and brought forth the issue of joint health and preservation, knees and ankles in particular. I had mentioned that I had been frequently wearing up to 10cm heels, without any problems, and was concerned about the stress that doing so may place on my hip, knee, and ankle joints . The nurse practitioner took a look at my heels, and after expressing her opinion about how ridiculously cute my heels were and that I was so well dressed that day, noted that the best course of action is to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight, so as not to place extra stress on the joints. So, as much as I may want to continue to wear 5"+ heels, that most likely will not happen any more or only for very special occasions. I am not sure what I am going to do with the boots...they are size 42 if anyone wants them. Here is the outfit I wore on Christmas Eve and that to visit my nurse practitioner.

The muscular fatigue really came as a surprise to me. I’d expected the burning in the balls of my feet - I’d heard that was a common issue - but instead I had cramping and achy calves. Considering all the cycling I do, I couldn’t believe muscle tone was an issue when it came to wearing heels. If anyone had fir calves it was me - but wearing heels really was like taking up an entirely new sport! I’ve not yet had an occasion to stand for several hours in my 10cm so I don’t know how I’d managed but for a couple of hours I’m certainly fine. I have not tried standing for a long period in my 12cm heels - I shall start building up, see if I can manage an hour standing in them.

Starting later with wearing heels and skipping the youth's foolishness has it's upsides as I can read from you both. Otherwise, muscular fatigue wasn't really a topic for me, maybe that's an upside for adapting quicker at a younger age. Standing for a long time in heels really is the worst, it still gets me until today. In 10 cm heels I can stand for a few hours with a little bit of movement in between, but in 12 or 13 cm heels that's a different story... Merry christmas to everyone 🙂

Let me second those Christmas wishes! I know what you mean about the muscular fatigue. I was not in actual pain, and don’t recall much pain in the balls if my feet, but my calf muscles felt like I’d dine about a thousand toe raises at the gym. It wasn’t exactly painful, but tight and achy. I took the next day off - frustrating, as I was so keen to put them in again!