For most of my adult life I wore 9 1/2 extra wide (4E) shoes. That’s what they fit me for in basic and that’s what I wore for a very long time.
A few years ago, however, I started having foot pain issues which my podiatrist noted were caused by too-narrow shoes. I had to go from a 4E to a 6E and up from a 9 1/2 to an 11. (Note, my dress-up boots didn’t come in widths so I ended up with size 13’s and “filling space” with a couple extra gel insoles.) Apparently, this was part and parcel of my plantar fasciitis. The bones in my feet were just “splaying” more and so I needed more room to accommodate the resulting shape change.
Eventually it reached the point where I was wearing size 12 4E shoes (although they were a little loose in width once broken in. Could probably have gone with a 2E instead.)
All well and good. However, the other day I went shoe shopping again and trying on shoes what I ended up with was a size 10 1/2 4E.
Apparently, my feet shrank.
This does not make any sense to me at all.
So…two new pairs of shoes. Sneakers (New Balance, which my podiatrist recommends for me for the better arch support than most brands) and some basic oxford dress shoes. Both in a size that a year ago I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze my feet into.
Weird.
The Writer in Black 
When I enlisted, I wore a 10.5D. When I separated (about 1,500 parachute jumps later,) I wore an 11.5EEE. Probably all that jumping…
I’m still an 11.5EEE, all these years later. I keep fitting my wife to different sizes, tho – she has enough trouble with her feet that I fit her to every single pair of shoes she buys.
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Depending on the manufacturer, I wear a 10.5 D or an 11 D or an 11.5 D, and sometimes E instead of D. I have even found the same manufacturer’s shoes are different depending on where they were made. This is why i have to try on a pair of shoes before buying it, and I DON’T like shoe shopping.
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Reminds me of a line from old movies: “Feet, don’t fail me now!”
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What i was trying to say is that quality standards have gone out the window at many shoe manufacturers, so standard sizes aren’t so standard. This in addition to feet getting bigger or smaller with age and/or weight leads to real problems in finding shoes.
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