How to treat ball of foot pain?

[skipper @skipper Participant]

I woke up this morning with really bad ball of foot pain in my right foot. What is the most common cause of ball of foot pain? I don’t know what has caused it as I do a lot of different sports.. football/climbing/skiing/running/cycling so I cannot pin down the injury to a bad “technique”. It could be that I have really bad technique in just one of the sports I do or all of them.. who knows.

At the moment I have abandoned doing any sports as I don’t want to make things worse. But that being said simply resting my feet waiting for the pain to go away and then doing exactly what I did before will simply mean it will come back right? What would you advise I do?

To try to ease my pain I have been looking at various insoles (I have no support in any of my sport shoes), however I am totally skint at the moment and do not have enough money to go custom and buy some super expensive insoles form a podiatrist. Will off the shelf insoles help. Also are The balls of the feet seem like a very awkward part to exercise so I cannot imagine there being that many exercises to help it.. but if there and stretches exercises that I can do to help strengthen the balls of my feet i am all ears! Thanks guys!

[donna @donna Participant]

Depends on the cause of the pain – I’d suggest seeing your GP as first point of call. I had a few years of terrible foot pain caused by a Morton Neuroma which I had surgery to remove last October – I then over did it running in December and sprained it and that just required trying to rest it as best as I could… So yeah, I’ve had two types of pain in the ball of my foot and they required different things to fix so go see your GP 😉

[beckyE @beckye Participant]

Have you scared yourself by looking online yet? e.g http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/foot-heel-pain

[skipper @skipper Participant]

Thanks for your replies guys really appreciate it. I looked online and the word metatarsalgia popped up but that injury seems to be extremely broad and covers all ball of foot injuries.

I wonder if it might be caused by me putting too much pressure on ball of feet when I walk or something.

I was thinking I might do PRICE, but is this only for when you have just injured your foot and doesn’t work later on?

[jess @jess Participant]

metatarsalgia just means pain in the metatarsal region, so more a description than a diagnosis…

[SoccerGal @soccergal Participant]

I woke up this morning with really bad ball of foot pain

I have had this twice in my life here is my story…

First time was caused by walking around for ages in winter at night on ice in cheap ordinary shoes. The BAD pain lasted 2-3 months then gradually went away

Second time was caused by wearing cheap shoes which had metal studs coming through though still padded. I only found out when someone examined the shoes carefully & pointed it out. Binned them

Hope you get better soon 🙂

[skipper @skipper Participant]

@socccergal Thanks for your support! It feels like a really dull ache today and

Iv been looking at my running shoes and they are pretty worn out.. weirdly they do feel a lot tighter than they did when I bought them and I am pretty sure my feet haven’t grown and I only bought them 6 months ago. I think they are made from some pretty bad materials shoes nowadays are designed more for style than anything else which is a shame.

Now I have been looking online at some horror story’s about hammer toes, bunions and all sorts of bad and irreversible foot injuries.. hope I get this sorted and in a way that it doesn’t come back.

[connie @connie Participant]

I’ve had massive issues with metatarsalgia over the last 5-10years. The single worst thing for setting it off was stiff winter boots, with or without crampons (although with crampons resulted in excruciating pain like two of my toes were on fire!!), also climbing shoes without a stiff enough sole.

I have dropped metatarsal heads which are largely genetic (or obesity related) by the time I saw a physio the arch of my foot was visibly higher even to the untrained eye. I know you said you can’t afford custom insoles at the moment, but the £230 i spent on the physio/ insoles was the best money I’ve spent in years, and worth forgoing a holiday for. I just left it and left it due to cost and being to busy and reached the point of struggling to walk some days.

[lovely @lovely Participant]

Definitely go to your GP. I had the same and it was diagnosed as Mortons Neuroma by my GP and by a podiatrist. GP booked me an ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis and it turned out to be bursitis (fluid swells up in the sacs in the foot and causes pain/discomfort). GP did a cortisone injection and I had to stay off running for 6 weeks and it’s now mostly gone. In the meantime, problems are generally caused by badly fitting shoes. Wearing insoles will make it worse because they’ll make the shoes tighter so unless you’re prepared to pay out for bigger shoes, don’t bother. As far as you can, wear shoes that are as comfortable as possible and obviously any shoes with worn out soles won’t be great. Good luck healing.

[skipper @skipper Participant]

Thanks I went to see my Doctor and turns out I have a bit of diabetic neuropathy in my feet and as well as as Mortons Neuroma. I think the neuropathy made sure I didn’t feel it when my feet got injured…only the after pain affecting regions with active nerves. I don’t know how I am going to stop my feet from getting worse if I cannot properly feel it when they are being harmed.

Going to look online for some new shoes.. but looking at orthopedic shoes and they look like something an old granny would wear :/

[tigg @tigg Participant]

You really don’t have to spend a lot of money. When I had metatarsalgia it was caused by overpronation when I walk which was putting an unnatural amount of load on the balls of my feet when I walked or ran. What helped me was wearing some orthopedic insoles that corrected overpronation. Within around 2 weeks my ball of foot pain was all gone. I didn’t spend that much money I just picked up a £9.99 pair of arch support online.

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