Expert: Dianne M. Buxton - 12/5/2010

Question
Dear Dianne,

Thank you for all the wonderful answers you have provided on allexperts.com.  I am constantly learning from them.  I have a question about my foot problem.  Maybe starting this summer I have been feeling pain in the ball of my left foot when I releves.  It feels like the bone on the ball of my left foot that is connected to my second toe is a little higher than the other bones on the ball.  When I am on three-quarter pointe, I am not able to equally distribute the weight across the ball of my foot because it feels like the bones in my ball are not all resting on the same platform.  I feel a lot of my weight is concentrated on this single tone because it is higher than the others and therefore drills into the floor.  If I roll a little bit on pointe, I feel I am rolling on that higher bone and feel a grinding pain on that bone.  At the beginning, I only noticed the pain when doing releves, but now I can also feel the pain on that bone when I am walking barefoot on hard floor. (Though the condition might have been equally bad before.  I was just not paying attention to it.)  When I touch my foot, I can feel the callus buildup in the area of the bulging bone.  But when I actually use my hand to feel across the ball of my foot, I cannot feel significant difference between the height of this bone and the others.  It does not hurt when I wear soft shoes.

I am an adult beginner in ballet.  I am 20 years old and have been doing ballet for one and a half years.  I love ballet and work very hard on it.  I hope I have not overworked my foot or caused a permanent injury that would make dancing painful.  What should I do?  Thank you so much!

Jessie


Answer
Hi Jessie. You are so welcome and I'm glad I have been helpful!

Regarding your foot pain, I recommend you see a chiropractor. It is possible that you have a dropped metatarsal bone, or perhaps just a misalignment that can be corrected. Usually if you have a dropped metatarsal bone, you feel it as you describe.

Certainly any inflammation can be treated and a chiropractor will also take an x-ray if it is deemed necessary.

It is better if you can find a d.c. that has some experience with sports injuries, though that is not absolutely essential. The ones that do have this experience understand better the need to stay training while healing, if possible.

Don't press up on this foot until you've had it seen to. I'm not sure, but it might be good to refrain from jumping as well. I hope you can see someone very soon, and you'll know exactly what's going on and you will be in the healing process.

All the best, Dianne