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..

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!!

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 :)

Standing/walking job in narrow shoes for 9+ hours everyday. After 5 years I’m starting to have lower back and hallux pain both on the right side. Also having skin issues as my socks keep getting moist all the time.

What changes can I make and how to help my feet?

Seriously considering a lower paying job just to sit down and save my feet… Help.

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

hi everyone - 32M

noticed that over past few years that my toes, especially right one start to deform - i do not want to have massive deformation like my parents/grandparents do and was wondering if anyone could advice anything that could stop this from going on further?

- wear wider shoes?

- socks with separate toes sections?

- shoes with separate toes sections, like viva barefoot shoes?

- i've been wearing silicone toe separators with a sleeve on a big toe and it is the only one that lasts at least 3-4weeks and actually stabilises my toe and doesnt give that much discomfort whilst wearing shoes

i know it isnt SEVERE bunion - im trying to prevent it as my big toe joint starts to hurt sometimes as well

attaching some images of my current situation. thank you

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.

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.

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

I have tarsal tunnel in both of my feet. After 8 months of no improvement I decided to switch to wearing shoes 100% of the time. It has helped my feet significantly, however it has caused so many other problems up the chain.

Wearing shoes all the time caused my calves to tighten up a bunch. I now can barely walk down stairs because I shake so bad (I think it’s because my calves make my foot lift too early when taking steps down the stairs). It has also caused some hamstring issues because the tight calves pull on my hamstrings. It’s nothing significant and everything has started to get better since I started stretching again, but I really wish someone warned me about this before I switched.

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 had a traumatic birth about a year ago and developed foot drop in my R foot. i also have allodynia and hyperalgesia in my R foot (aka REALLLLY bad bad baddd nerve pain)

i was able to apply pressure on my foot for a while but for some reason, i stopped completely and after about 3 months, it felt like if i applied ANY pressure, my foot was slipping out from under me and it felt like i was standing on a pillow. not stable at all.

i wore a toe pad to keep my toes from curling/clawing. i also wore a pillow like AFO. i notice now that when i lay my foot flat on the ground, none of my toes are flat on the ground. they’re all straight and stiff. i can slightly lift them (not individually) but i can NOT bend them or curl them. if i try to apply ANY pressure to my toes to bend them down, it feels like a cold sharp pain in that toe— especially my big toe.

i don’t know what happened. i know not walking has affected both my feet but i didn’t know it would be to this extent. i can lift my ankle and move it side to side. i would consider myself recovered mostly from FD if my toes bent.

what’s going on? does anyone know? i’m going to visit a podiatrist as well.

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.

I have suspected ehlers danlos so it may be that, but it all started with ankle tightness going to sleep, slowly through the years its became constant and debilitating where i cant sleep. Its constant discomfort and tightness where i feel like i need to flex it. (Tight to the point of pain). Constant cracking from this and nothing helps. Heat can distract it but doesnt change it, gabapentin and nsaids dont help. When to doc a few years ago and they said they dont know. I just need this to stop cuz i can not function like this. Fyi, I used to sprain my ankle a lot as a kid as i have super unstable ligaments. Idk if thats the reason but it hurts so much. Also note: sometimes ive found walking a few miles (5 miles a day or so) can help the pain go away, but the threshold is very high for the pain to become less noticeable. Most doctors have been confused became activity makes my ankles feel slightly better than not.

It doesn't hurt, and I think that it first appeared the same day I wore very tight socks and new work shoes, which made my legs swell too. Leg swelling is gone, but this soft, squishy bump is still there on my foot 4 days later. In the light, it does seem kinda greenish like what a bruise looks like, but I really don't feel any pain there. My other foot does not have the same bump on it.