Neuromas
Neuromas are when the nerve in between toes become irritated and thickened. This causes burning, cramping, shooting and sharp pain in the ball of the foot which often extends into the toes.
What Is a Neuroma?
A neuroma is a thickening of one of the branches of your nerves that run down into your forefoot. Neuromas can be symptomatic (pebble feeling, burning, numbness) or non-symptomatic.
What Does a Neuroma Feel Like?
Your experience with symptomatic neuroma will be different from every other person. What we know from pain research is that your pain will vary during our treatments together and that this is a normal part of your healing journey.
If you have a symptomatic neuroma, you will typically feel:
- Burning in the ball of your foot
- Electric shock like symptoms in the ball of your foot
- Numbness in your toes
Feels like you are walking with a rolled up or wrinkled sock or pebble beneath your ball of your foot.
What Causes a Neuroma?
The cause of a neuroma developing is not agreed upon by experts; however, the likely cause is a combination of compression, repetitive trauma, or pressure to one of the digital nerves that lead into your forefoot.
Changes to the feet including bunions, arch height and other toe deformities may change the bone structure of the bones of the forefoot increasing compression and tensile stress on the digital nerves.
How Do We Manage Neuromas?
We manage neuromas by providing pain relief and offloading of the symptomatic neuroma with a combination of the following:
Footwear review: you may require purchasing new shoes with a wider toe box (front part of the shoe) and avoid high heels or shoes with a narrow toe box.
Customised orthoses: within built paddings and domes to spread the toes and help reduce the compressive stress of the bones surrounding the neuroma.
Local anaesthetic injections help reduce the symptoms of the neuroma for a short period this will help to determine if the neuroma is the cause of the pain.
A surgical procedure to remove the neuroma is only recommended when conservative options fail to reduce the symptoms.
For help with neuromas, call us on 08 7120 6063 or book online with our experienced team at Leading Edge Podiatry.