What do you mean you walk on your toes. are you saying your heels don't touch the ground, if this is the case I'm surprised that you made it to 14 without serious foot pain, regardless of whether your mum was the same, your foot is not designed to function this way, the extra force is probably damaging your joints and soft tissue see a good doctor soon.

I might know just what you are talking about. I also used to walk on my "toes". This was somewhat due to having had Osgood Schlatter's disease as a child, which left me with bi-latteral patella-alta, which has led to chondromalatia and osteo-arthritis. The other reason being that I have flat-feet.

The short version of this, is that I was walking on my toes because:

1. I was trying to gaurd my knees from having to go into full extension and in doing so avoid dislocation.
2. I have flat feet and turn my feet in as I walk.

You might want to first see a pediatrist to evaluate your stance/walking and check for flat feet. I have recently gotten inserts for my shoes to compensate for my flat arch and it helps a lot. More interesting however, is even though I am now walking "properly", I now have the sensation of walking on my toes while actually walking with my feet flat. That suggests that you might be having the sensation of "walking on your toes" while in fact, that is how you would feel if the arch of your foot is correct, which would allow your heel to touch the ground while walking.

If the pediatrist can't find anything wrong, you might want to see a knee specialist and get your knees evaluated for any abnormalities.

I hope this made sense

Thanks!~

I'm fifteen now, and I've walked on my toes ever since I learned to walk. However, I do occassionally get foot pains in the ball of my foot, but when I walk on my toes, it alleviates the pain better than walking heel-toe. First let me explain toe-walking, as it's called. The formal term is "digigrade", which is caused by a shortened Achilles tendon. Not to fear, you should be fine. I take it that while you can occassionally walk heel-toe, you cannot run that way, like me? Also, if you have been walking on your toes since you were a baby like I have, your feet have formed as they grew to accomodate you shifting your weight over the balls of your feet instead evenly over your heels? Also, I take the heels of your shoes are less worn than the balls of them, like mine are? Don't worry, you're perfectly fine, aside from the pain, which you should probably lay off the toe-walking, and try walking heel-toe for a bit. Try getting some joint cream.