injury on the dance floor

S

sarah1

New Member
Okay so I’m actually not a ballroom dancer, but I couldn’t find any other place that could help. I’m a competitive dancer that dances minimum 8 hours a week.

3 1/2 months ago my foot started to hurt really bad in between my fourth and third metatarsal. This caused swelling in that area, on the top of my foot, ball of foot and ankle and caused pain in many other places in my foot.

I went to a doctor about this and was sent to get an x ray, which came back fine so I started physiotherapy to treat “extensor tendinitis”. After twice a week for 8 weeks, there was no improvement and the pain only got worse, so we went back to a doctor who called for a bone scan. My bone scan came back cleared and I have been referred to a sports medicine clinic.

I’ve researched almost every foot injury that you could have and since the bone scan and x ray eliminate any kind of bone injury, I couldn’t find anything that matches my symptoms. Competition season is coming up and I really don’t want to be sidelined. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
I forgot to mention: there’s no bruising at all, but I’ve lost some mobility and cannot point my foot as far as I used to / as my other foot.
 
Go to the sports medicine clinic, they will be the best ones to guide you.

Meanwhile, consider resting the foot while waiting for guidance, rather than dancing through the pain. And once they are treating you, keep in mind that missing some time dancing, whether for a few weeks, a few months, or even longer, can be well worth it to give an injury time to heal completely. It's much worse to keep pushing it and have something become a long term issue that continues for many years to come.

Time off is usually inconceivable to competitive types ... but sometimes it is necessary for good healing. Better to miss a few weeks, or even a season, rather than miss many seasons, or keep dancing, but only through pain in years to come.

Let the sports medicine folks guide you through this. Good luck!
 
I definitely had a similar problem over the last six months. It was the first time I had an injury where I had to limit my dancing. I have danced for more than 25 years. I don't know how much rest you have been giving it. But the problem with foot injuries is you often must absolutely not move or out pressure on the joint that has been having a problem.

I actually did not 100% stop Dancing. I taught a group dance class basically walking on my heel and not putting any pressure on the ball of the foot. My students understood that I had an injury and of course I could not dance to well while I was teaching them but they took my class just the same.

But I had to do everything I could to not put any pressure or move that joint, and for me it was somewhere inside the ball of the foot anywhere from the toe next to the big toe down to the fourth toe and it would move around a little bit like you described.

And probably the part that I didn't understand the most was that with past injuries I was able to keep dancing. For example my back hurt but once I warmed up I can still make it through. Same thing for my shoulder injury or I couldn't hold up my arm very well but I can still suffer through okay and the shoulder wouldn't get any worse. But the foot was different. I had to give it a lot of rest and be super careful not to walk on it in the wrong way.

Now I'm about 5 or 6 months since the initial problem and I'm getting pretty close to being completely healed but that's a long time and I never expected it to take so long.
 
I've had some pain recently in a similar part of my right foot. It never got as bad as yours, and it seems to have cleared up in the last few days. I think it was caused by misalignment of the foot, which was in turn related to misalignment of the hip, which was further related to some twisting in the torso and pelvis and pain in my neck and jaw. So my suggestion would be to check your alignment.
 
So, update: I went to a podiatrist, who used tests to eliminate injuries to the bones, nerves and circulation. He was certain it was a soft tissue injury, but never disclosed what it was or what I should do help it heal/sustain it. Two weeks later, I went to a sports medicine doctor, who was certain it was either a bone injury or a nerve injury. She's sending me to "disc therapy" and then referring me for an MRI.

Honestly stumped. Any hacks for supporting the feet and maintaining the pain?
 
sarah1 said:
So, update: I went to a podiatrist, who used tests to eliminate injuries to the bones, nerves and circulation. He was certain it was a soft tissue injury, but never disclosed what it was or what I should do help it heal/sustain it. Two weeks later, I went to a sports medicine doctor, who was certain it was either a bone injury or a nerve injury. She's sending me to "disc therapy" and then referring me for an MRI.

Honestly stumped. Any hacks for supporting the feet and maintaining the pain?
Click to expand...

Well I can definitely feel for you because I have been dancing for 26 years and I have had a foot injury that started about six months ago. It is the first injury I ever had that stop me from dancing for more than a few days.

While professional advice is good, just remember that you are with you more than anyone else. Try some different strategies to see if you can make some small improvements, which may then lead to some better improvements. I'll mention a few things and of course I'm not a doctor but these are some of the things I did that helped me.
- while wearing socks, I got ice packs and applied them for about 15 minutes a couple of times per day. I think you can do it as many as six times per day.
- lay on my back and do foot circles both ways very slowly about 10 times.
- lots of different stretches from the pigeon to calf stretches to hamstring stretches and lots more
- massage. I would go to massage once or twice per week and have them try different areas of my legs and feet to see if anything helped. I don't know if you have this in your area but here we have some relatively inexpensive foot massage places where it's like $20 for an hour.
- this is a strange one but I thought I'd mention it. Sometimes I would walk and it would hurt but I would just say to myself "I will overcome" each time I took a step on that foot. Seems kind of weird but it kind of worked really nicely.
- when it was especially bad, I would rest but I would still try to get some form of exercise like swimming. I think it's important to keep the circulation going. Just don't want to put a lot of it pressure or impact on the area where it hurts, especially when it's still healing.
- I also recently tried to drink a lot of water in the early part of the day. I kind of imagined that if I drink a lot of water and also got some exercise to circulate my blood maybe it would carry away some of the jump in the side of the injury.

I could probably add a few more things to the list, but that is what comes to mind. Tonight I went dancing for about an hour and I did really well. My foot does not hurt afterwards. I waited months for this. I'm not going to say that is perfect but it's better.

Don't underestimate your own willpower and determination to get better. your thoughts to matter and I'm sure there's a lot you can do even if it takes more time to get better.
 
It's possible that you have a stress fracture that was not picked up by the x-ray or bone scan. I don't understand how a podiatrist could feel confident in ruling out all the problems he did. If I were you, I would stay off my foot as much as possible and elevate it, until you have a diagnosis. Ice, elevate and maybe ibuprofen if if is swollen. I would withhold stressing it or massage until you know what is going on - the potential for further damage is too great. Once you have a diagnosis, you will be in a better position to treat it. BTW, what is disc therapy for the foot?
 
I am not a doctor but I find that over the counter creams or lotions that contain histamine dihydrochloride provide some relief and seem to help reduce inflammation. One brand name is Australian Dream but there are generic products with the same active ingredient that cost less. I apply it to the affected area 2 or 3 times per day.
 
Are you having any other wierd issues? The reason I ask is I had issues with the top of my foot off and on for a year with no relief- then I had a wierd inflammation issue in my eye and my opthamologist actually recommended I go to a rheumatologist. Turns out, I have ankylosing spondylitis - and auto immune form of arthritis that is based in the SI joint (where I’ve had pain for years) and foot issues like I had and how you’ve described are actually one of the odd complications of it. My AS actually caused a number of wierd issues I’d been having off and on for years. And when I have a flare, it often flares in my foot.
 
Hello! Back again with a few more puzzling updates.

The disc therapy did not end up helping, therefore my final source of aid was the MRI. The MRI was taken with specifically morton’s neuroma in mind, yet it came back completely normal.

Updates of my actually foot include that there has been a bit of bruising, still a bit swollen and still painful on the top, ankle and outside edge.

I did take a break from dance in the summer, so there was time for it to heal. Now that there’s nothing to see on the MRI, everyone is really stumped.
 
I basically ended up dancing much less over the last year, and I didn't wear dance shoes, just black sneakers. It was frustrating because it was harder to enjoy the dancing. Similarly I have had something like Morton's Neuroma, but no clear diagnosis.

I feel a little more confident saying now that my foot is almost normal. I don't feel like I have to choose between taking a walk or dancing. I can do both. I'm still cautious about spending a lot of time on the ball of my foot, so my rise and fall in Waltz for example is not ideal.

I still dance a few hours per week, and there may come a time when I increase that, but meanwhile I have found lots of other things to do that also make me happy (walking, languages, friends).
 
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