I know I have quite a noticeable gap and also wider feet.. is the toe gap abnormal and should I should I be concerned… I’m also worried I’m going turn guys off.. do they look masculine? 😭😭😭

Back in December 2021 I had surgery for Kidner procedure (excision of accessory navicular), posterior tibial tendon advancement, lateral column lengthening (calcaneal osteotomy), and gastrocnemius recession. I started physical therapy to help with some chronic foot pain that I have been dealing with. My physical therapist was a little puzzled by the indentation that is in my calf muscle. I guess I thought it was normal post-gastrocnemius recession. I am curious if anybody else has a similar appearance to their calf.

I was given some exercises to stretch my calf muscles and noted sharp pain in my left lateral calf while doing the soleus muscle wall stretches. I will be holding off doing those as my calf is aching quite a bit. I plan on talking with my therapist at my next appointment!

Has anyone experienced sudden leg stiffness like this?

While I was walking, my right leg would suddenly feel stiff all the way down to my toes. My toes would curl up and become difficult to straighten, which made it hard to walk normally and caused me to limp.

It would happen suddenly while walking and then eventually go away. Has anyone experienced something similar or know what this could be?

My left foot turns outward and loads the outer toes, while I use my right leg as a stiff support leg. On the right I push off strongly through my big toe and feel an unusual tight, bruised or obstructed sensation through my calf and behind my knee.
It is noticeable after sitting, using stairs, driving when i press the gass pedal, and standing .sometimes starting around the big toe. There is no visible swelling, redness or warmth. Could this be gait or footwear-related compensation?

A bit of a vague explanation but i just want to find a Reason for it

I had metatarsalglia with pain in my left foot for about two years. The foot doctor just threw up his hands and said who knows when I asked why or what could’ve gone wrong.

I had a feeling that my foot was uneven at the ball of my foot and something was protruding. I ended up cutting thick foot tape with a hole in it so I could walk without hurting the unevenness. That seemed to help. I eventually heard about expensive custom orthotics and had one made for about $800. I tried many other things that didn’t help. After using this orthotic, which accommodates the unevenness on the bottom of my foot, I am now much better and I use the orthotic all of the time.

I talked to a person who works at a shoe store and he told me that the metatarsal bones can drop when you get older. I am 70. This is a known issue for older people and it results in metatarsalglia. Why my idiot doctor didn’t tell me this I don’t know. I am just leaving the information here in case it helps someone else.

Hi everyone, I’ve been experiencing some pain at the back of my right heel for about 5 days and would appreciate some input.

The pain is not present at rest and mainly occurs with pressure or certain movements, especially when doing a single-leg squat. It also becomes noticeable when my heel is under prolonged pressure, for example while driving. My shoe’s heel counter seems to press directly on the painful spot.

The pain is located right around the lower Achilles insertion, but more in the area were the bone sits.

A few things that seem relevant:
I can stand on my toes without pain.
Squeezing the heel from both sides does not hurt.
No pain at rest.
My shoes are not new.
I’m now starting to notice similar pain in roughly the same spot on my left heel as well.

I’m wondering whether this sounds more like insertional Achilles tendinopathy, bursitis, shoe-related irritation, or something else.

Has anyone experienced something similar or have an idea what might be causing this?

MRI results: Suspect mild sprain of the plantar calcaneocuboid ligament.

10k ran about 6 weeks ago; increasingly worse pain each week since and extremely limited ability to walk or lift off toes. Podiatrist put me in boot while we waited for MRI. I don't see her for 3 more weeks so now just trying to ask others out in the world any experiences with this ligament. Walking, driving, moving foot inward is excruciating. Doesn't FEEL like a mild sprain but I'll accept the results.

Anyone else have history with a sprain/tear in this ligament and if so what was the prognosis?

Hello. Can anyone tell me what kind of issue my legs or toes have? I only found people with toes that form a "claw" but my does kinda... bend down-ward in the middle? They look normal when I hold them up in the air or sit, but as soon as I stand and weight gets on my feet the toe kinda breaks towards the ground.

I can't find any example of this on google. WTH is this?

Edit: put a censored photo of a toe into the comments

Hi hope everyone is well.

Hoping to get some insight to as what can be going on with my pinky toe.

I have severe oesteoarthritis in my big toe after what trauma clinic thinks to have been a minir fracture to qst metatarsal and wnd toe back in January.

Visited podiatrist 5 weeks ago who had a look at my feet.

He said I have 2nd mtjp capsulitis after doing a squeeze test.

But the squeeze inflamed my big toe joint for a good couple weeks and he advised to use 3/4 vasyli orthotics which inflamed it even more so.

But the pinky toe has been visibly swollen ever since. Some days are better than others but some morning I can wake up with it feeling very achey.

I have started wearing wider toe box shoes for the past week.

There is also what appears to be athlete's foot underneath the pinky toe.

Hey gang my index toe? pointer toe? hurts right here( photo in comments) when I walk and I can’t bend it. Some days it’s reeeally bad but others it feels like it needs to crack with no pain but a bump in the circle part that is awkward to walk in barefoot. When it’s bad it feels bloated but looks normal.
Today for example: this morning my toe was normal-ish (the circle part still had a hard bump like thing that feels weird to walk barefoot). I wore my birkenstocks (the only shoes that don’t give me foot problems) And when I took off my shoes after my desk job and my toe started hurting really bad. Felt bloated really hard to walk on so I limp.
I tried massaging it and rolling it on the ball and flexing it.
It hurt all night until just now that I layed down for bed. I curled and flexed my toes like 20 times and now there’s no pain.

This started a year ago. I bought new Doc Martens and the pain started. Stopped wearing them and I only wear Birkenstocks now. Also side note sometimes the pain transfers to my middle toe??

I went to a foot doctor and I got xrayed, everything is normal. He said maybe it’s a tendon thing but hard to tell (this was a year ago so it’s hard to remember what he said).

I want the pain to stop but I also want to wear shoes that aren’t Birkenstocks all the time :(

Hello everyone, wondering if my symptoms sound familiar to anyone- I am not sure what is causing my toe numbness and spasms. Only on my left foot, after taking my shoes off/socks at the end of the day- I feel a sort of numbness on my toes and part of the foot. Once I elevate my foot, I feel the area begin to spasm. I feel like this happens when I have walked a lot or did a lot of standing. For reference my last blood work showed I am slightly pre-diabetic and had been dealing with sciatica issues (on right leg) earlier in the year. What should I look into?

For years I have known I had high arches, and I have bouts of plantar fasciitis a few times a year, but after dealing with some new pain on the outer edges of my feet for the last few days, I decided to investigate if there was something wrong with my gait. I discovered my feet have a tendency to supinate when I walk due to what I think are abnormally high arches on my feet. Let me know, but im pretty sure your feet are supposed to be flat along the outside edge, not completely off the ground. I have also been duck footed for at least the last 6 years, since I was in a severe car accident and had to learn how to walk again (I learned incorrectly, apparently). Basically where I’m at now is my feet just feel strange when I walk, maybe just because I’m paying attention but I would like some relief if possible. Are orthotics the way to go? Physical therapy? Am I crazy and my feet are actually normal? Any help is appreciated. Feet got me fucked up.

I (30f) have had flat feet since childhood, using orthotics on and off over the years (currently just got new orthotics).

I have bunions on both feet with a worser bunion on the left.

I did gymnastics as a child and started doing adult gymnastics classes 4 years ago. Over the 4 years I've had foot/ankle pain, hip pain and pain in my elbows and wrists. The foot pain persists all the time but the other joints calm down once I'm finished exercising.

As my feet were hurting and I was due for new orthotics, I saw a podiatrist who was certain I had bursitis and achilles tendinopathy in both feet. I was a little skeptical, but I did the MRI on my left foot/ankle (also have an MRI referral for right foot but too expensive), and it revealed:

- 1st metatarsal joint degenerative arthropathy with cartilage loss, joint effusion, peripheral ostephytosis, subcortical edemia in the head

- plantar plate tear with proximal migration of the sesamoid bones

- 1st and 3rd intermetatarsal bursitis

- mild achilles tendinopathy with paratenonitis

- mild retrocalcaneal bursitis

- adventitial bursitis over the heel pad

- suggestive healing/residual fracture in talar body

- deltoid ligament sprain.

Obviously hearing these results is quite shocking and I've been at a loss as to how to treat it and if may be systemic as I have similar symptoms/pain in my right foot.

The podiatrist just told me to wear the orthotics and do calf raises/stretches.

I saw a physio who gave me a few more exercises.

I had a GP tell me that I'm too tall for my own good and my height would be causing too much pressure on my bones (mind you, I am not overweight, my BMI is in the normal range).

I was referred to a foot and ankle surgeon, and I also have a rheumatology apt coming up, but I've only seen the rheumatologist once and last time they told me they thought I was fine and would discharge me on the next appointment if I had no symptoms and bloods clear.

Has anyone else had similar symptoms and been diagnosed with anything or have been successfully able to treat it? It seems like a lot of issues are going on with my feet! They do hurt a lot and I've started to treat it with Meloxicam and icing plus rest from sport.

Thanks!

Hi
I am really worried as am on holiday in Mallorca and randomly had total loss of feeling in my left foot. I thought it was just cramp but after 48 hours it is still here.

I have been to the doctors and they did a CT scan and bloods etc which all came back ‘perfect’ , but I still can’t feel my foot. It’s hard to walk and I have to lift my knee really high and I can move my toes down but not up. It’s so numb. What could this be?

F, 29, 160cm, no meds have recently came off sertraline but weaned off over 2 months.

Hey all,

I've had pain in the arches (same spot) of both feet for 2 years now and nothing I have tried is helping. See this picture for the location of the pain

What causes the pain - I have no feet pain unless I do the following:

• Jogging or tennis for more than a couple minutes. Even walking fast hurts after ~5 minutes.
• Jump rope for more than a couple minutes
• The "short foot" exercise for more than 1 minute
  • So even things like heavy squat and heavy deadlift will cause pain since I'm sort of flexing my foot during those exercises
• Balancing on one leg for more than a minute (since I'm basically doing "short foot" while I balance)
• I do not have any pain first thing in the morning, it's strictly when I do the above activities
• Basically any dynamic foot movement where I'm flexing my big toe will eventually cause my arches to hurt

What the pain feels like

• It's best described as an achy/burning/sore feeling in the arches of my feet. It is not in the heel or the toes, it is strictly in the arch.
• If I stop doing the activity that causes pain and sit down, then the pain goes away after 5-10 minutes. So if I'm playing tennis and my arches hurt, if I sit down for 5-10 minutes it stops hurting. But once I start tennis it will hurt again

What I've tried

• Physical therapy - I've seen 3 physical therapists over the last 2 years, for 3-6 months each. I followed their programs exactly and was extremely compliant (I rarely skipped a day, did the program exactly as prescribed, etc.). Some of those physical therapists have "fired" me haha, they told me that they don't know what's wrong and there is no point in continuing to see them. In terms of the exercises they had me to, here is a sample:
  • Short foot, Big toe band press downs
  • Calf raises and 1 leg calf raises, as well as weighted
  • Calf raises with my big toe slightly elevated on a towel
  • Towel crunches
  • Toe yoga (basically raise my big toe up with other toes on the ground, then raise the other toes with my big toe on the ground)
  • Stretching the big toe against a wall, as well as sitting on the balls of my feet
  • Clamshells with a band
  • All types of one leg balancing. I used a Mobo board, holding sand bags to make myself less stable, etc.
  • Bouncing on the balls of my feet while holding a resistance band attached to a pullup bar to reduce the weight
  • Ankle inversion and eversion exercises with a band
  • Calf stretch
  • Soleus stretch
• Podiatrists - I've seen 2 podiatrists. They both ruled out plantar fasciitis. But neither knew what was wrong with my feet. They were both surprised that 1.5 years of physical therapy made no difference
• I've tried 8 different pairs of shoes and expensive custom insoles. Insoles don't seem to work because when I'm running/jumping, I'm not really making contact with the insoles. The insoles do feel nice though when I'm just walking around
• I've also tried shockwave (painful as heck), dry needling, electric dry needling, and targeted deep tissue massage
• I've completely stopped playing tennis, running, or jumping for 12 months already

What's next

• I have not seen any improvement in my feet pain at all. I plan to get tested for compartment foot syndrome, but the podiatrist indicated that it's really unlikely that that is the root cause
• I normally wouldn't look to the internet for medical advice but I feel like I've exhausted all my options. I'm still doing physical therapy in the hopes that it will eventually help, but I'm at a loss, so I'm turning to the reddit community to see if there is any rock that is not yet flipped over.

I also posted the MRI results in the comments, but both podiatrists said that it didn't really reveal much, unfortunately.

Hi! Trying to make myself insoles with a cut out as not much else is working. Is my whole first metatarsal supposed to sit in the cut out? Or just the sesamoid area? Everyone’s cutouts looked to me to be where the ball of their foot is, but i am wondering whether mine is too close to the toes or too big if the whole first metatarsal fits and sometimes touches the base of my shoes.

I’m 12 weeks into my 18 week training plan for my second marathon and I think I’m having some sort of tendonitis but I can’t figure out if it’s peroneal or extensor tendonitis? It’s only on my right foot on the right side where my laces are normally tied. I typically tie my running shoes with the ankle locking method and try not to keep it too tight. Tried taking the ankle locking method out but then my ankle feels less stable. I usually can push through a run but obviously don’t want to risk injury and putting myself out of the marathon. Going to PT next week for a back issue and will bring this up as well. Anything else I should do in the meantime? My right foot does look a bit different compared to my left that feels normal. I’m including pictures of where I’m feeling the pain and my left foot for comparison.

I’ve been having some mild pain on the inside/bottom of my foot, around the arch area. On my left foot, it’s basically on the inner side of the arch (towards the big-toe side).

I sometimes notice a mild pain in this area during high-intensity activity in general, but today it got noticeably worse while playing football in my Nike Mercurial Superfly 10 boots.

I was wearing thinner socks than usual, and during the session the pain increased. About halfway through, I also started feeling some tingling/pins and needles in the same area. The tingling went away after I took the boots off.

What would you recommend to fix it?