The Frisky's Leonora Epstein writes,

You wear your new super hot, strappy high heels and the next day your feet look like they've been in the boxing ring. Then, the only way to wear your shoes again is to protect your wounds with band-aids that slip out of place, or you end up taking them off anyhow because they're so unsightly and you're wincing every time you take a step.

Foot-boxing actually sounds kind of fun, and a better reason to get a foot injury than ill-fitting shoes. But no matter, the solution to all podiatric problems is ... Nexcare Clear First Aid Tape! Yes, just tape over those seeping wounds and strap your hot high heels right back on again. The Frisky calls this "tip" (originally from Teen Vogue) an "amazing insider fashion secret."

Of course, this "insider secret" can be found in any drugstore, but more to the point, if your shoes make your feet bleed, just don't wear them for a while! Or do as I did the last time a pair of peep-toe flats made my feet an oozy mess (damn you, Paris Hilton Collection!), and recognize that they don't actually fit you, and by a different pair. This is easier if, like me, you only buy $40 shoes.

Or, for a more radical solution, try never wearing shoes at all. Scientists studied the feet of people from South India who "walk barefoot throughout life, mostly for spiritual or financial reasons." Their feet were a different shape than those of shoe-wearers, and pressure was more evenly distributed over the soles. This means shoes probably change the way our feet work, and not in a good way. However, they do protect us from hot asphalt and broken glass, which would probably necessitate more Nexcare Tape.

How To Wear High Heels Even When You Have Blisters [The Frisky]
Footwear Alters Normal Form And Function Of The Foot [ScienceDaily]

Dr. Suzanne Levine, D.P.M, is one of those people who makes all the cliches about rich people seem inadequate. She's a podiatrist in "studded Louboutin boots" who saw a gap in the market for patients who wanted not only healthy, but beautiful feet. After all, health does not an attractive Louboutin make. Accordingly, she does a brisk biz in foot facials, peels, and custom rhinestone surgical booties, so as to make feet look as well-groomed and eerily well-preserved as the taut faces five feet north. "

At her office, or Institute Beauté, as she has dubbed it, Dr. Levine has patented the foot facial ($225), a treatment that includes a foot mask, callus removal and a collagen-inducing copper cream; and a procedure called Pillows for Your Feet (starting at $500), recommended twice annually, involving Juvéderm and Sculptra injections that provide cushioning for foot soles, making it easier to wear sadistic heels. She also administers foot Botox to get rid of wrinkles and swelling-gotta avoid the dreaded cankle!-and does a bleaching treatment ($225) for yellowing toe nails. And then there is the controversial toe-shortening procedure of pesky extra-long second toes-sometimes done to ease discomfort, other times for cosmetic reasons-in which middle bones of the toe are removed, making it easier to squeeze into a wider variety of designer shoes. It starts at $1,500.

No one's faulting Levine, here: clearly, she's onto something. And, she says, she has scruples: She won't shave bones merely for daintiness, and does not believe in surgery just so people can fit in to shoes - except of course, in the case of transgender women, who presumably have dealt with worse pain. Her attitude is, women are going to wear absurd shoes anyway - might as well make it as safe and comfortable as possible. To those who view this as some sort of needle exchange compromise, well, clearly you've never looked a podiatrist in the eye and lied, claiming you'll wear AAA Keds for the rest of your life. Or, for that matter, apologized to a pedicurist before getting your one, post-winter pedi of the year.

That said, this is the most frivolous, shockingly tone-deaf thing we've run across in a while, and we speak as people who follow the peregrinations of Miley Cyrus for a living. Worrying about wrinkles on your feet? This is taking fear of aging to a whole new level. Feet are one of the body's workhorses, and a sort of odometer, and however much you run the mileage back with an electric drill or whatever it is they do in Matilda, "aesthetic podiatry" will only disguise so much - and, more likely, just contribute to the cycle of addiction and insecurity that already plagues a certain subset of women who live in fear of that one gray root showing, that one crow's foot becoming less than plumped. Ms. Levine acknowledges that it's the latest spate of ludicrous shoes that's largely fueling her business - 7" skyscrapers of which Levine says, "the average person cannot walk in them-they're limousine shoes," - which, no one seems to realize are pretty much the equivalent of foot-binding. Quite literally, these shoes show that someone doesn't need to stand, or walk - let alone work! And yet their popularity has waxed as the economy has waned. And, apparently, so has Levine's business. The rich are different? Yeah - apparently they can't smile with their toes.

Time for Toetox? Park Avenue Podiatrist Tends to Tortured Soles [NY Observer]

Can lead to these:

Still.

You could throw away your Jimmy Choo's and wear these:

for the rest of your life.

Or you could just say hello to Yoga Toes, which claims to help with a dazzling array of ailments, including bunions, hammer toes, sciatica, fallen arches, and decapitation. Okay, maybe not the last one.

According to the blurb:

"[Yoga Toes] work while you kick your feet up and relax. YogaToes will stretch, strengthen, and align foot muscles. This action increases circulation, straightens bent toes, and can even realign the bones. YogaToes are truly revolutionary."

It's about as close to Yoga as I'm willing to get.