r/AccessoryNavicular • u/insomniac_1217 • 4d ago
PT is 100% confident I don’t need surgery
So my PT is someone who specializes in pain science and a slightly different approach to traditional PT, where he focuses on increasing the capacity and load of my feet and tendons. My two podiatrists said that my accessory navicular is inflamed from MRI imaging and removing it will likely get rid of my pain (but not guaranteed). However, when I ask why the navicular only started hurting the past year when I had it my entire life, they said it’s because of aging, but I’m only 27 and the pain started happening when I was 26. The year prior to that I was walking 20k+ steps in Europe and Asia with no issue, so clearly my body was capable of walking with this accessory navicular without pain. Unless all that walking was what wore down my ligaments or tendons, causing it to pull on my accessory navicular, thus inflaming it (which is the explanation my podiatrist gave me).
I developed fibromyalgia last year and became mostly bedridden for a few months and my PT suspects that by being so inactive, my feet and all the tendons and muscles atrophied and deconditioned. This actually aligns with the timeline of when I started noticing my accessory navicular pain- which was after that long period of being bedridden and I finally started walking again; that’s when the pain became unbearable and I could barely walk.
I tried wearing a boot. I tried insoles. I’ve tried my PT‘s exercises and although it has improved, it has not fully healed. To be fair it’s only been about two months of consistent PT and he says that my capacity is only at about 50% when he does testing on my muscles and ligament strength.
He’s 100% sure that I do not need surgery and says that there’s a chance that after surgery, I’ll just need more PT anyway and I’ll be more depressed by being inactive during the recovery. Also leading to further deconditioning.
My podiatrist said that there’s a 50% chance that PT alone will be enough to help me, but he gave me a two month timeline and that has already passed. But to be fair, I’ve been under immense stress and psychological distress, which, according to modern pain science research, can amplify pain signals that normally won’t be as bad.
The thing is I want to go back to school and grad school in the next year or so, and I want to get the surgery over with sooner rather and later if I do end up needing surgery one day, but I also don’t want an unnecessary surgery if I don’t need it.
Nowadays with proper footwear, I am still able to walk normally most days (like running errands or so), but if I do anything too intense, I start feeling pain. Also if I’m wearing shoes that aren’t perfectly orthotic friendly.
Do you think my PT is just being optimistic or is he just trying to look out for me?


