The HALLUX VALGUS can be defined an inward deviation of the greater toe. Popularly, it is called "Bunion". It is referred to as HALLUX VALGUS because the great toe with time, angulates. The instep of the foot widens and the tip of the toe angulates towards and, sometimes, under the second toe. A bunion is a displacement of the joint between the big toe and the long bone just behind it (the first metatarsal) toward the mid-line of the body. Also arthritis of the joint of the great toe can occur. 

Pictures of Hallux Valgus deformities (1) and Advanced deformities along with Hammertoe and Corns (2).

Bunions are common. Many people have them. Women more frequently than men. Improper shoes are undoubtedly a factor. Typical woman's pumps - tight shoe boxes and high heels certainly have been implicated as a major cause:  it doesn't offer enough space to lodge the toes, throwing 70% of the body weight on the compressed fore-feet. There may be a familial tendency to the deformity. Genetics may play an important, though not simple role.

The HALLUX VALGUS is very badly tolerated by the patients. While the distortion is still discrete, the pain appears only when wearing a tight shoe. It becomes permanent and unbearable when the "bunion" becomes infected accompanied by a piercing pain sometimes attaining the second toe.

The difficulty in wearing a shoe is one of the direct consequences of the HALLUX VALGUS. The fore-foot becomes larger and the "bunion" increases in thickness, sometimes even forcing the second toe to find a place beneath it.

The shoes on the market not being made to lodge such deformities, the patient would rather prefer walking bare foot than wearing a torture shoe.

Last but not least, we must admit that the shoe must be placed around the foot and not the foot driven in the funnel of a tight shoe. Some specifically designed kind of shoes, like Piedsensibles can do the job, because they respect the foot's width, and the now triangular shape of the fore-foot.