suek
11-16-2003, 01:52 PM
Anyone else dealing with this?
I've had a neuroma in my left foot since spring of this year. Made it very difficult to dance, since it felt like a hard marble in the ball of my foot. Until I knew what it was I kept taking my shoe off and adjusting my socks, or insoles, and relacing my shoe...no help.
Cautionary note: It was caused by too-tight shoes (esp in the toebox). I was using snug dance shoes and then added Spencos to cushion my foot and ran out of room. Technical diagnosis: squooshed my toes too tight.
Research (and two visits to podiatrists) offered surgery as the most common option. I dug deep enough to decide that I didn't want to do surgery...has a 50% success rate and can really screw up the foot. Plus keeps one off the dance floor for at least eight weeks. Not acceptable to me.
Found sclerosing injection therapy as an alternative. Injects alcohol solution into the area too kill the nerve Supposed to work 80% of the time. Spent eight weeks in big pain, took a lot of painkillers, missed a lot of dancing and it didn't work for me; I guess I'm in the 20%. Ended up with a bigger area of pain (added scarring I think), an altogether unhappy result.
Started experimenting with mechanical workarounds. Was buying inserts and metatarsal pads to redistribute the weight, with not-so-great results. Then on a visit to my orthopedic acupuncturist (for my neck...it's great being a 50something year old dancer with old injuries), I mentioned the neuroma and she told me to just tape a little piece of cotton ball (about one-sixth of a triple sized puff) to the bottom of my foot, about an inch below (toward the heel) the neuroma pain center.
Unbelievable. I have almost no pain. I can dance for hours. AND it's healing. I can dig in there and massage it and it's getting better. It's an amazingly easy fix and I just wish I had learned about it before those f[expletive deleted]ing injections.
Maybe this will help someone else. And I'd like to hear from other neuroma sufferers and survivors. What do you do to deal with this?
Thanks
Sue
I've had a neuroma in my left foot since spring of this year. Made it very difficult to dance, since it felt like a hard marble in the ball of my foot. Until I knew what it was I kept taking my shoe off and adjusting my socks, or insoles, and relacing my shoe...no help.
Cautionary note: It was caused by too-tight shoes (esp in the toebox). I was using snug dance shoes and then added Spencos to cushion my foot and ran out of room. Technical diagnosis: squooshed my toes too tight.
Research (and two visits to podiatrists) offered surgery as the most common option. I dug deep enough to decide that I didn't want to do surgery...has a 50% success rate and can really screw up the foot. Plus keeps one off the dance floor for at least eight weeks. Not acceptable to me.
Found sclerosing injection therapy as an alternative. Injects alcohol solution into the area too kill the nerve Supposed to work 80% of the time. Spent eight weeks in big pain, took a lot of painkillers, missed a lot of dancing and it didn't work for me; I guess I'm in the 20%. Ended up with a bigger area of pain (added scarring I think), an altogether unhappy result.
Started experimenting with mechanical workarounds. Was buying inserts and metatarsal pads to redistribute the weight, with not-so-great results. Then on a visit to my orthopedic acupuncturist (for my neck...it's great being a 50something year old dancer with old injuries), I mentioned the neuroma and she told me to just tape a little piece of cotton ball (about one-sixth of a triple sized puff) to the bottom of my foot, about an inch below (toward the heel) the neuroma pain center.
Unbelievable. I have almost no pain. I can dance for hours. AND it's healing. I can dig in there and massage it and it's getting better. It's an amazingly easy fix and I just wish I had learned about it before those f[expletive deleted]ing injections.
Maybe this will help someone else. And I'd like to hear from other neuroma sufferers and survivors. What do you do to deal with this?
Thanks
Sue