Metatarsalgia is often a popular word for pain in the forefoot, however the phrase is rather worthless. Metatarsalgia literally indicates discomfort about the metatarsals in the front foot and as a medical diagnosis it is about as good as stating someone has a ‘sore knee’. Just like a sore knee, metatarsalgia can be any one of literally 100’s of different coniditons. Every one of these distinct diagnoses that might get called metatarsalgia all have distinct causes, different treatments, and distinctive outcomes. The word should probably stop being used as it leads to a great deal of unneeded misunderstandings. You often see queries on the internet with people asking concerning things such as exactly what the root cause of metatarsalgia will be, which are the ideal footwear for this and exactly how long should it last. There is no manner in which these kinds of queries will come near to getting answered except if the actual diagnosis is known. This actual diagnosis can differ from a callus under the ball of the foot to a stress fracture of a metatarsal to osteoarthritis in a joint. It should be apparent from that just how awful a phrase metatarsalgia is.
Essentially the most frequent cause of pain within the ball of the foot that will get lumped underneath the phrase metatarsalgia is what is called a plantar plate tear. The plantar plate is a robust ligament beneath the metatarsal joints within the front foot. They may be strained or perhaps have minor tears and also cause pain beneath the ball of the foot. They are probably because of an overuse as well as due to things such as a claw toe. The pain is usually under the metatarsophalangeal joint as well as on the end of the joint should you flex the toe upwards. The best remedy for this is to wear firmer shoes so the toe does not have to flex so much whenever walking and to use strapping to keep the toe down. If that doesn't help, you can find surgical options to deal with the problem. In the event the discomfort is further back in the front foot and may also be noticed at the top of the foot and occurs slowly, then that could be a stress bone fracture. That could be typically due to an excessive use injury and the first approach to the therapy is rest after which get into a moon boot to restrict weightbearing. These can take nearly six weeks to heal. If perhaps there is a shooting pain in the front foot up into your toes, then this could be a pinched nerve which is often known as Morton’s neuroma. This is often brought on usually by wearing too tight of a shoe which compresses the metatarsal bones on the nerve. The treatment for this is to get into wider shoes and use a metatarsal pad to separate the metatarsal bones so that they don't crunch on the nerve.
Simply from these couple of examples, it has to be apparent precisely what a poor and pointless the name metatarsalgia is as a medical diagnosis. When you have discomfort in the front foot, then have it clinically diagnosed correctly.