What causes pain in the ball of the foot?
With this common foot condition, one or more of the metatarsal heads become painful and/or inflamed, usually due to excessive pressure over a long period of time. Patients usually experience acute, recurrent, or chronic pain. Pain is often caused from improper fitting footwear. Footwear with a narrow toe box forces the ball-of-foot area to be forced into a minimal amount of space. This can hamper the walking process and lead to extreme discomfort in the forefoot. Other factors can cause excessive pressure in the ball-of-foot area. These include shoes with high heels that are too high or engaging in high impact activities without proper footwear and/or orthotics. Also as we get older, the fat pad in our foot tends to thin out, making us much more susceptible to pain in the ball-of-the-foot. How do you treat it? The first step in treating metatarsalgia is to determine the cause of the pain. If improper fitting footwear is the cause of the pain, the footwear must be changed. Footwear desi
