If you’re on your feet all day, on concrete, then it’s fairly natural that your feet are going to hurt, though the swelling sounds nasty. If you look at places like machine shops, they often have rubber mats where people stand for this reason.
The only style of boot I’ve found that eases things are the type with the ‘airwear’ style squishy sole. Dr. Martens were the original’s, but they’re produced overseas now and quality isn’t what it was. I wear ‘Solovair’ which are made by the same factory that used to produce Dr. Martens. They offer a huge range of styles, including safety boots with steel toe caps, shown below.
I found when I was younger, that if I wore lace up boots every day I started to get some ankle pain. Apparently this is common, and is caused by your ankle getting weaker. I wear shoes or Chelsea boots predominantly now, and have had zero issues since.
