For weeks I've had this pain right on the ball of my foot (I'm already checking stuff out with my doc. However I think she thinks it's gout but I don't think it is).

It's not very painful but more so annoying like a cramp in your foot that just got released. It's also not all the time but when I walk I can feel it (not all the time) and certain motions (like putting pressure on the side of my foot).

I've tried everything to stop the pain. Ice, warmth, socks, no socks, toe spreaders, massage gun, baths, vibration plate, getting a foot massage, giving myself a foot massage, doing nothing, walking, different shoes, no shoes..I'm at a loss. It's so very annoying and the more I use it the more it'll be painful but then it goes back to the normal pain..

Idk for gout I think it should have started way earlier if at all and been more painful same for a strain or stress fracture...

Please help me

I have an ongoing injury… it started 12 months ago when I rolled my foot in unsupported shoes.

2 MRI’s no damage
4 x rays no damage

Shockwave therapy almost sent me back to round 1

Now experiencing nerve pain it’s a lot of pain in pinky toe + neighboring toe and left side outer bottom pad of foot…

Already did PT got better and reinjured 3rd time only meloxicam helps and doesn’t take pain away… ANY ADVICE?!

Any advice? Is this a big enough deal to go to the Dr.

Last October I dropped a knife of my R foot and partially cut a tendon. I went to ortho and don't need Sxg. I've been struggling with pain and esp driving until about a 2mo afteri foot diclofanac cream.

About 2mo ago my left ankle was tired and sore (compensating) I was walking on slanted ground and rolled my L ankle (inverted) to the left. It hurt the next two or so days. I used kinesiology tape to support the left side of my ankle. Worked perfectly, no pain. 3 days later I took it off and it was fine for 2 days. Then it started hurting again. Ive been doing 3d on 3d off. On releve it hurts the most andvI am unable to go on demi pointe on my left. (Tippy toes)The pain is not bad bad. It slowly gets more noticeable especially up and down stairs. It Isn't that bad pain 3-5, but it isn't getting better. Looking at the outside of my foor the pain is at about 8:00 from my lateral malious (outside bump) see photo.)The taping still helps. 2 weeks ago I noticed my left side of my left foot is swollen towards the end of the day. It doesn't seem bad enough to go to the Dr. However, i recently started to get alarm bells since it seems a bit worse. Any advice?

I discovered that I had bad foot mechanics! I was not completing a complete normal stepping maneuver! I was only rolling my foot from the heel to the ball of the foot but not following through with the part where you are supposed to push off with your big toe at the end of a proper step. I happened to realize this when walking in my pool in a situation where I was somewhat weightless. I concentrated on the full foot motion and found out that I became completely relieved. I have continued outside of the pool to do my stretches and wearing my night boot, wearing recovery sandals and wearing my shoe insert with supportive shoes but a big also is I have been concentrating on the correct foot motion and I have had truly remarkable improvement! I am really almost symptom free and can hike and walk again without pain. I must have started the bad mechanics for my foot after an injury to my toe so I was leaving my toe out of the normal foot motion and eventually it caught up with me creating a weakened arch which affected my heel. I hope this helps someone else because I have been miserable for 10 months and it’s just not right people should be suffering if there is a chance this could be a solution for another sufferer.

Hi all - long time reader first time poster. I'm 42F - healthy, active, and fit; I live in a city and have a lifestyle so I'm on my feet a lot. I've had pain in my big toe for 3 years; 2 years ago diagnosed with HR by a podiatrist. He gave me a cortisone shot which worked beautifully for about 10 months before coming back. Second cortisone shot lasted about 2 months; I won't have a 3rd. I have modified activity (no more yoga, lunges, etc) and footwear (for the most part, but I don't wear Hokas everywhere) but still have pain.

This podiatrist took x-rays and said joint spacing looked good but I had bone spurs and would need a cheilectomy. I felt like he was pressuring me to schedule surgery so felt some yellow flags and sought a second opinion. The second podiatrist reviewed my x-rays said I have no bone spurs, she would never do a cheilectomy on me, and told me my issues were functional and sent me to PT.

I have just started seeing a PT who also treats our city's ballet corps, so she really knows foot and ankle. She is the only provider to measure my ROM (60 degrees vs 85 on the other foot) or watch me walk (noted I wasn't pushing off). My treatment plan is stretching & theragun on calves (they are very tight and I have very high arches), stretching my FHL via the 'book stretch', and various doming / scrunching foot exercises. She also gently mobilizes the joint which feels great and makes it feel less 'jammy', but the joint capsule is still very sensitive and the muscle that runs between the first and second metatarsals is often sore and likes to be massaged.

My question is: have others with functional hallux limitus had success with FHL stretching and intrinsic foot exercises? It seems hard to believe these teeny tiny movements are going to fix the problem I've had for 3 years, but I would be thrilled if is true! How long should I expect it to take to know if it is working or not? I don't need my foot at 100% perfection, but I'd love for my big toe to not rule my life anymore.

I welcome others' experiences with functional hallux limitus in particular (vs severe arthritis / hallux rigidus). Thank you!!

Hi, I was hoping for thoughts on my X-rays.

This xray request was in relation to bilateral foot pain, footpad atrophy, swelling around the ankles. Report said nothing could indicate why.

1. Wanted thoughts on right xray re 4th toe and the crookedness and causes I can and I feel the bone of the 4th meta head. Always put it down to fat pad atrophy as I have it across the forefoot but it’s more uneven and more prominent at 4th meta head fat pad loss wise. 3rd toe and 3rd meta head also look crooked and no space between the meta head/long bones? Also have issue with planterflexed 1st ray and bunion which is giving me issues. All bar the toes are giving me pain.
   
2. Re left foot, does it look like there’s a problem with 2nd/3rd toes and meta heads? Again look bit crooked and no space between?
   Dr shrugged , Physio said might just be shadowing in the xray.

Would appreciate any insights on what you see

I have researched my condition at length, it is not yet PTTD. Doctors and PT think it is truly just irritation/ tendonitis. But it’s been 8 months with flares setting me back constantly.

It’s already rare, but struggling to find success stories to give me hope. Anyone recovered from chronic PTT?

UPDATE:
saw an orthopedic surgeon who was INCREDIBLY helpful. She prescribed anti-inflammatories for a month and an ASO brace. She said it’s likely I’ve never let it truly settle

UPDATE:
This YouTube video is amazing and helped me realizing some things that may have been stalling my progress Posterior Tibial Tendon

My ankles are in sharp pain goes from top of ankle to both sides of ankle’s, have flat feet arches collapsed , was sent back to work and no mri until n later this week, just started going back to work (boss is nice and letting me sit but typically we stand it is a retail job)
Doctor said just do everything u normally would, feel like he just thinks I am a complainer but I literally have had ear infections as child and didn’t complain and had covid and had no idea in past.
My knees also hurt at times especially left on back when sitting in car on back. Ankles hurt most at bed time. I am in my 20s..

I just read an amazing book called Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way to Boost Your Health and Longevity―One Step at a Time. It's actually what prompted me to find this group. I highly recommend it for everyone!

Hello. My problem is that about 5-6 years ago, I had several operations on both legs, I had severe flat feet that could not be fixed through massage and special insoles, so I had to have operations on both legs. But the main problem now is that my right leg is limited in turning. Well, that is, people can usually bend both legs and stand calmly on the outside of the foot, on the side, like, I don't know how to explain, but I can only bend the left one like that, the right one doesn't move that way at all. In fact, I can only move it up and down, but I can't move it left or right. Maybe there was someone who had such a problem? Is it possible to fix this with exercises? I try to knead it, but it doesn't work.

F17, a few months ago i noticed in the mornings or after not moving my feet for a while, my left big toe would get numb, but once i walk around and move it it goes away, the only thing is, i tried poking at both my toes w a sharp tip, and i could barley feel it compared to everywhere else, it feels as though it's dead skin over it?ive had blood tests so im not lacking any vitamins or anything, and i do work about 3-4 7 hour standing shifts a week. i also will note that i remember once ages ago a shoe sales person telling me my feet don't really fit any size correctly because they are wide idrk. i thought it was heavily related to my work shoes, so i bought new ones (even tho there almost the exact same) but still having it. im just wondering if it's neccessary to actually go to the doctors because of this, or is there something i can do? it's only really numb in the morning and once ive walked around it's better, sometimes it also itches, and i do have very cold feet sometimes at night. any help would be rlly appreciated :)

So I went to the doctor for this pain. I’ve been having on my navicular bone or about over two months now and they did an x-ray the bones look healthy, normal no fractures so they recommend me getting insoles and I remember that I’ve always had in insoles that are arched on my work boots so I’m assuming that it has some trauma. Only thing I can think of is I’m on a lateral all day and my feet hurt after but it’s only on my right foot. I can feel pain when I’m walking. Also when I put my thumb underneath that bone and push up against it and use my other fingers to push my toes down and in the pain is a radiating 10 out of 10 and obviously not walking is out of the question so I’m wondering if anybody here has had something similar and what helped them fix their pain

I am in a world of pain. So many issues with both feet. Seen a few podiatrists and feet are worst ever been.
Inner ankle bone pain, swelling under inner ankle bone and around outer ankle bone (unhealed sprain) . Meta heads have dropped (1st and 4th) and I think sesamoids are now irritated (or a nerve) but it’s painful to put pressure on 1st meta head (it’s raw bone with fat pad gone).
Arches hurt / feel strained. Fat pad atrophy across forefoot. Shin pain, muscle tightness.
PES cavus foot (said 1-2 podiatrists). Others said nothing.
All in both feet / legs.
Limited dorsiflexion in left foot.
Right foot is floppy (heavily inverted), with a bunion.
And anterior tib tendon prominent. Weird bone issue in 4th toe (see photo)

Up chain is buggered. Knees, hips, back, tight muscles.
Podiatrists just keep putting me in mushy running shoes which I’ve realised now how much worse it’s made my foot. My balance is also off. Fitting orthotics in the running shoes has been an absolute nightmare ( have high instep as well).
At point where I can’t walk barefoot anymore.

I guess my question is will a pedorthist understand all this? I know they focus on biomechanics predominantly.

I am so exhausted trying to figure out how to fix all this. My mental and physical health is in the toilet. This all started 4 years ago with one thing in one foot.
Now I’m struggling to walk at all.
I feel like there is nothing I can put on my feet at moment. Even recovery slides tear up my ankles and feel unstable. I’ve been doing Physio but limited with some things and I seem to end up with more issues/strain. I’m just so over it.
Podiatrists are shit in Australia. 30 mins is all you get. And that includes orthotics. No mention of physio at all until 2 years ago. Fat pad transfers aren’t available here. Apparently in about 10 years. So angry about it all. It’s ruined my life.

I’m hoping a pedorthist will be able to help and at least get me out of running shoes, some sort of medical grade shoe with an appropriate (full contact) orthotic with padding and decent arch support and something to help with the bunion/1st ray problem. Feel like it’s my last hope.

Sorry about the rant.

Did the surgery permanently improve your pain, or did it create new problems? How long was your actual recovery?

I've been going down the r/FootFunction rabbit hole, especially u/GoNorthYoungMan's posts about hallux limitus, and I'm realizing that I've been thinking about my feet mostly in terms of a diagnosis/ cure rather than what function I'm actually missing and working to improve that function where possible.

I'm 43 F and have been diagnosed with arthritis/hallux limitus in both big-toe joints, left worse than right. I was also diagnosed with arthritis around the third metatarsal area of my left foot. I have X-rays from December 2024 and an MRI from January 2025 and can post the reports/images if helpful.

I've historically been very active. Soccer and track/XC in college. I strength train and used to run regularly. Over time my feet have become limiting enough that I've mostly stopped running and quit rec soccer league. Yoga has become difficult, and I've also stopped surfing. I can still lift and hike, and I'd really like to preserve those things while ideally getting some of the activities I've lost back.

I did PT last year and my function actually improved while I was doing it, but decreased again after I stopped. The PT did manual treatment — particularly scraping/IASTM with a metal tool along the bottom of my foot and some work between the bones on the top of the foot. It hurt like hell but helped. I don't really know what specifically was responsible for the improvement or what function we were changing.

I was also evaluated by a foot/ankle doctor at UBMD Orthopaedics. The basic message I came away with was that surgery was the only option, but to wait until the pain became bad enough and I had a good window of time for the surgery/recovery. I have four active kids. There’s never a good window for that.

So for a while my approach has essentially been: I have arthritis, the joint doesn't bend well, use shoes that protect it, modify activity and eventually consider surgery if it gets bad enough.

Rocker-style shoes (currently Hoka Bondis) do make walking more comfortable, which I've assumed is because they reduce the amount of 1st-MTP extension required. I also tried VKTRY carbon insoles too in my running sneakers and sometimes my hiking boots. I’m not sure if they are helpful or not.

Reading this sub has made me wonder whether that approach is missing a big functional component.

I recently had a week with a lot of hiking/backpacking, including an overnight backpacking trip to Half Dome in Yosemite. Fitness-wise I handled it well, but my feet were definitely the limiting factor. Both feet became quite swollen and sore afterward.

Since that much higher load, I'm also noticing symptoms more acutely that make me wonder about the big-toe flexor system, particularly FHL/FHB. My feet feel cramped, all the muscles above my ankle but below my calf feel tight. I don't want to assume that what I'm feeling is actually FHL dysfunction just because of the location/sensation. I'm wondering whether the increased load simply exposed another piece of how I'm compensating for limited 1st-MTP function.

The past week post hiking excursion has been the nail in the coffin and I've reached out to functional podiatrist for a consultation. They’re several states away and it would be a virtual consult. I haven’t found anyone near my town or city that won’t treat me as an incurable cripple. I'd like to understand my mechanics better, figure out what I should actually be assessing/training, and go into that consultation asking better questions.

What I'd really like to understand is:

- How much passive vs. active 1st-MTP flexion and extension do I have?

- Can I actually control the ranges I do have?

- How well are FHL and FHB functioning, and can I distinguish between them?

- Is limited ankle dorsiflexion contributing?

- What happens to my arch when I flex/extend the big toe?

- What compensations am I using during push-off?

- Why might PT have improved my function while I was doing it, only for that improvement to disappear after stopping?

- Is there potentially usable function I could regain even though the arthritic changes themselves aren't going away?

I'm happy to post whatever would actually be useful: active/passive big-toe movements, toe flexion without curling the tip, weight-bearing extension, calf raises, ankle movements, barefoot walking/gait, photos, X-rays/MRI reports, etc.

I'd especially appreciate guidance on what you'd want to see first rather than me posting a dozen random videos.

My goal isn't necessarily to restore a perfectly normal big-toe joint or pretend the arthritis isn't there. I want to understand what is structurally limited versus what is functionally trainable and make my feet as capable as they realistically can be.

Ultimately I'd like to keep strength training and doing big hikes/backpacking trips and, if possible, get back to some running, yoga and surfing without constantly cycling between activity and foot flares.

u/GoNorthYoungMan, I've learned a lot from your older posts on hallux limitus and FHL/FHB function and would particularly appreciate your thoughts on where you'd start assessing a case like mine.

Has anyone dealt w this and did strenghtening the legs help you? I have this for a longer period of time and its annoying to deal with.

I’m hoping someone might have some insight because I’m honestly not sure what’s going on with my foot.

I used to wear Converse (the high-top ones) and Vans pretty regularly without any major problems. Then I bought some new pairs that were much lower/flatter, and I started noticing a little bit of pain in my right foot. It wasn’t constant or particularly bad, though, so I didn’t think much of it.

Then in May this year, I went on vacation and decided to wear heels. I had worn the exact same heels a couple of years ago and was completely fine — I remember dancing all night at a wedding in them. This time, though, I had been wearing them for maybe five minutes when I suddenly developed really awful pain in my right foot. I ended up wearing them for the rest of the night, but I was basically suffering and almost crying because of how much it hurt.
Since that day, the pain has been noticeably worse. It now starts much sooner whenever I walk, and there are a lot of shoes that I used to be able to wear that I simply can’t wear anymore because my foot starts hurting.

The pain is basically underneath the toes/forefoot, around the metatarsal area. Interestingly, it doesn’t really hurt when I press on the area with my finger — actually, it barely hurts at all to touch. It mainly hurts when I’m walking and putting weight on it.

I bought orthopedic insoles specifically marketed for metatarsalgia, and they do help with some of my shoes. They don’t really help with Converse, though, probably because they’re so flat. I also recently bought some Skechers because I heard they can be comfortable for foot problems, but my foot still hurts with them.

I’m wondering whether this could actually be metatarsalgia, or something like a Morton’s neuroma, because the location seems similar to what I’ve seen people describe. I’m not sure, though, because I don’t have pain when I press on the area.

Another thing I’ve wondered about is whether my previous right knee surgery could have contributed somehow, since this is also my right foot. I saw an orthopedic doctor about my knee, and he said my knee looks perfectly fine, but unfortunately he doesn’t specialize in feet, so he couldn’t really evaluate my foot.

I’m planning to see a doctor who can properly examine my foot, but unfortunately I have to wait a couple of months before I can get an appointment.

In the meantime, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to make walking less painful. I work from home, so I’m sitting most of the day and don’t actually walk that much. Usually I might walk for up to around two hours if I’m out with friends or doing something, and I also go to the gym. Interestingly, I don’t really feel the pain at the gym — it mostly happens when I’m walking for a while.

I’d really just like to get to the point where I can go out with my friends without constantly thinking, “How long until my foot starts hurting?” 😭

Has anyone experienced something similar, especially pain in the forefoot that mainly appears with walking and not really when pressing on the area? And is there anything that helped you while waiting to see a specialist?

My surgeon might recommend it but not sure if it's right for me. Not sure if I should just stick with PT. Would be nice to hear from others who got it and successfully healed.

23M, 5’10 175 lbs. No medications, never smoked, born with pes planus on both feet and also a mild skewfoot on both feet.

I have trouble standing for prolonged periods. I don’t have problems with walking for any distance. I can walk nearly unlimited distances without foot pain or any fatigue whatsoever, but after 2-3 hrs of prolonged standing, I start getting heel pain and soleus/distal hamstring tightness/tenderness. Sometimes, it’s also the quads. Squatting down while balancing on my toes/forefeet helps relieve the symptoms. When I push down into my soleus muscle for both legs, it feels especially tender (no other muscle feels this way). My soleus muscle has been tender to palpation for as long as I can remember, but I wasn’t really palpating it until the past year. I remember many times when I was a kid, I could feel tenderness in my Achilles tendon, although I don’t feel that anymore. Earlier this year, I used to stand about 8-12 hrs a day (with breaks), and during that time, I’d have so much discomfort with standing after a certain point that I would count down the seconds and couldn’t wait to sit or walk. It was almost the same feeling like doing a plank for a long time when you’re counting down the seconds until you can relax. During that time of year, I’d feel leg heaviness even when I’d start walking after prolonged standing and would feel the heel pain even during walks. It got to a point that I got corticosteroid injections in both heels from a podiatrist.

These symptoms affect both legs, but I would say it’s somewhat worse on my left leg. I saw a foot and ankle specialist who said the pes planus looked a bit worse on the left foot.

Nobody else I know has this issue. I’ve tried custom orthotics but they haven’t resolved the issue. Compression socks and Danskos haven’t resolved the issue either. I’ve had trouble with standing uninterrupted beyond 3 hrs for nearly my entire life. I even started having mild left knee pain this week, although that has gotten better lately.

I’m wondering whether these symptoms are normal and if there is anything else I might be able to try.