Help with a foot injury

[sarah1]

hi, so i’m a competitive dancer that dances minimum 8 hours a week. about 4 months ago, in between my third and fourth toe started to hurt. this lead to swelling on top of my foot, in the affected area and my ankle, as well as pain in the top of foot, metatarsals, big toe joint and ankle. there was no bruising, but i’ve lost a bit of mobility in my metatarsals.

 

because of this, i went to the doctor, who sent me for an x ray (which came back fine) and referred me to physiotherapy for extensor tendinitis. after twice a week for 8 weeks, physiotherapy didn’t do anything except make it worse.

 

over christmas break, i took 3 weeks off, which didn’t help much. it still hurt when walking and was constantly sore and throbbing.

 

my doctor then sent me for a bone scan (was which also came back fine) and referred me to a sports medicine clinic. the clinic hasn’t responded and it’s been almost a month. i recently went to a podiatrist who told me he didn’t really know what it was and “to rest if i felt i needed it”.

 

are there any ideas as to what this could be? or how i can deal with it? our first competition is in a month.

 

thanks, sarah

[alison]

Welcome to the forum, sarah1. I'm no expert in dance injuries, but I suspect someone will look in and recommend you see a proper dance physio as soon as possible - I'm concerned about this referred pain (is that the right term?).  I've added a few tags to your post, including "dance physio".  Click on that one, and it will take you to all the other posts tagged the same way, which may be of some help.

[Moomin]

I would agree the money spent on a private physio (preferably dance specialist) is worth every penny as they are very thorough. I have Morton’s neuroma which is pain in a similar area but it’s not really responsive to physio, more about orthotics and padding the area etc. I had one very bad flare up and couldn’t walk for longer than 10 minutes without severe burning pain and was being woken up at night in pain (and I’m a deep sleeper!). In that case pushing through the pain just made it worse and because I was subconsciously walking differently because of the pain I had problems at the ankle etc too. I think you really need to find out what you’re dealing with but you may find there is no quick fix, it took more like 6 months plus of rest to get a big improvement for me. I wish I hadn’t pushed through pain initially as it undoubtedly made the recovery much slower!

[sarahw]

Definitely see a dance physio if you can possibly afford it. Which region of the UK are you in? Forum members may be able to give recommendations.

[drdance]

On 25/02/2019 at 13:25, Moomin said:

I would agree the money spent on a private physio (preferably dance specialist) is worth every penny as they are very thorough. I have Morton’s neuroma which is pain in a similar area but it’s not really responsive to physio, more about orthotics and padding the area etc. I had one very bad flare up and couldn’t walk for longer than 10 minutes without severe burning pain and was being woken up at night in pain (and I’m a deep sleeper!). In that case pushing through the pain just made it worse and because I was subconsciously walking differently because of the pain I had problems at the ankle etc too. I think you really need to find out what you’re dealing with but you may find there is no quick fix, it took more like 6 months plus of rest to get a big improvement for me. I wish I hadn’t pushed through pain initially as it undoubtedly made the recovery much slower!

 

Morton's neuroma was the first thing that came to my mind when I read where the pain was originally.... a good sports physio will be able to help with this - but it really could be anything and I'd really recommend seeing someone asap. How old are you? and where are you?

[sarah1]

so, i’m back with a late update. to answer some questions, i’m 17 and live in canada.

 

starting where we left off, my visit with the sports medicine doctor ended with a referral for an mri and a sports physiotherapist.

 

the physiotherapist could not help me, so i haven’t seen her in a while, i haven’t seen a doctor since about june, but have another appointment scheduled with the sports medicine doctor.

 

regarding the mri, the sports medicine doctor believed it was morton’s neuroma, but my mri (which scanned specifically for that) came back completely normal. any other ideas?