Cure Foot Pain in North Austin
Foot pain comes from many sources. Learn about your foot condition and allow North Austin's Arbor Foot Health Center to provide a cure or treatment returning you to health and activity.
Metatarsalgia: Pain in Ball of the Foot
Cure is often possible without surgery
You may experience metatarsalgia if you're physically active or are an athlete and you do a lot of running and jumping. Or, you may develop metatarsalgia by wearing ill-fitting shoes, such as women’s heels and dress shoes. Some people just naturally have “bony” feet and are especially prone to this pain in the ball of the foot.
The pain may be sharp, burning or aching. Sometimes your toes may feel numb or tingly and gets worse when walking barefoot on hard surfaces. Metatarsalgia may lead to pain in other parts of the same or opposite foot or pain elsewhere in the body, such as the low back or hip.It will affect the way you walk – friends may notice a limp.
The first step in treating metatarsalgia is to determine the cause of the pain. If improper fitting footwear is the cause of the pain, the footwear must be changed. Footwear designed with a high, wide toe box (toe area) and a rocker sole is ideal for treating metatarsalgia. The high, wide toe box allows the foot to spread out while the rocker sole reduces stress on the ball-of-the-foot.
Minimizing pressure to the ball-of-the-foot is the most important thing in solving this pain. Dr. Prant balances your foot much as a tire is balanced on your car. The difference is that an unbalanced tire wears out unevenly while feet don't wear out as much as build up calluses in areas that get extra pressure! We will apply balancing pads to your foot and when these are optimized they are put on an insole in your shoe. Rarely, surgery may be indicated to solve the problem. Dr. Prant solves the problem of pain in the ball of the foot in the simplest and quickest way possible!