I got a bunion. What can I do to alleviate?

Turning to my FRiends for some medical guidance. I had a couple of quick questions in advance of seeking medical advice; I have what appear to be budding bunions. Actually my condition came on slow and seems to be advancing very quickly and, currently, it is affecting only one foot.

About 2 years ago our business ~ a graphic design, web and marketing enterprise that I started with my wife 10 years ago ~ went south with the rest of the economy. We normally had contracts to last us a year and then everything just fell off the table; clients went out of business or stopped paying. Many Americans and FReepers fell int similar straits. I went back to school to acquire a license as a nursing assistant and got a job working at the largest long-term healthcare facility in our region. I work with long-term, dementia, rehab and hospice patients.

I really love my job, but it is very physical, particularly for someone my age. It doesn’t pay near what I used to make, but our business is coming back a bit and we are squeaking by. I have a pretty good health insurance plan and some decent benefits. I work with some awesome people and I serve really great folks, too.

Anyway, about a month ago I noticed some pain and swelling in the bone leading up to my left big toe. This is the foot which I go down onto and bend when I have to get low to assist people putting on clothes, serving up bedpans, emptying caths. In fairness, this is also the knee that I go down onto when I caught baseball for my son’s team, load wood into my fireplace or perform any other type of temporary function that requires hitting one knee. The foot has gotten worse over the last few days and it is pretty swelled up.

For now, I am going down on the opposite foot or not stressing my left foot. While I may not bend the foot, I am still on it a lot of the time, doing otherwise would be impossible.

My family has some other extenuating health issues and the cost to address this with a visit to a podiatrist or through surgery are not particularly good. Not right now. I’d like to try and alleviate the problem as best I can for a few months, if such a thing is possible.

I’ve seen some braces for sale on the web. They are called Wheaton Bunion Braces. Do they work? Can they help?

I wear crocs and always have in the workplace. They are soft and comfortable, but am wondering if I should wear something that would effectively bind and compress the area. Though I suspect the Wheaton brace might do the same thing, I really prefer the comfort of crocs.

I am 6’ 2” and 180. I could drop 7 to 8 pounds in a few weeks. Might that assist in alleviating my condition in the short term?

Long term, I have been told that surgery is the only option. I’m not thrilled by the prospect, but I will be in a better situation in the new year. I will also, hopefully, have a Certification as a Med Tech, which will take a considerable amount of wear and tear off these old bones.

Shoes? Stick with the cozy crocs or get into something for the purpose of compression?

How to Treat Bunions

A more serious sort of everyday foot problem is bunions, which are formed inside the foot, rather than on the surface. A bunion is frequently a form of arthritis, or bone degeneration. It usually takes the form of a bony bump on the outside of your big toe, although bunions can sometimes appear on the top of the big toe joint or even on the little toe (often called a “bunionette”).

More than four million Americans have bunions. Most bunions are painful because they’re accompanied by bursitis and/or because they’re so prominent that there’s no way to avoid bumping and rubbing them. A bunion may also force your big toe to point inward and rub against the next toe, eventually causing the second toe to become a hammertoe.

A common myth about bunions is that they’re caused by wearing high heels or other shoes that exert pressure on the outside of your big toe. While ill-fitting shoes can certainly make bunions worse, bunions are mostly hereditary. If your parents have bunions, you stand a good chance of having them, too. Bunions tend to come in pairs. In other words, if you have a bunion on your left foot, you’ll probably also have one on your right foot.

The best immediate treatments for bunion discomfort include the following:

Apply ice to the area several times a day.

Soak the affected foot, or feet, in a mixture of one cup vinegar to one gallon warm water.

Pad the insides of shoes with moleskin or foam rubber cut into a doughnut shape (the hole is for the bunion).

Switch to shoes with a bigger toe box, or, best of all, wear sandals that leave the bunion area exposed.

In the early stages of bunion pain, a doctor may prescribe orthotics (insoles) and exercises that may stabilize the foot and prevent further development of bunions. For continuing pain, however, you may need bunion surgery, which can often be performed on an outpatient basis.

Bunions are also troubling because they can lead to other foot problems, including hammertoe. Learn more about hammertoe and its treatments on the next page.

To learn more about treating and avoiding problems with your feet, visit:

Foot Injuries: Find out how to avoid unpleasant injuries to your feet, or at least reduce pain and prevent infection after they occur, with these simple suggestions.
How to Care for Your Feet: Learn how to keep your feet — and yourself — healthy and happy with these tips on caring for your feet, including selecting the rig

I had a bunion repaired.

Doc put a screw in the bone to keep it straight. I recovered (stayed off of it) for 2 weeks, then wore a stiff shoe for a month. No problem after that. Never took a pain pill after the surgery, just Motrin. Not all of these have to involve a horror story. Incision scar is about 2 inches long.

A quick check - stand barefooted along a line on the floor. Feet together. Line your “good” foot up on the line, put the “bad” foot against your good foot. Does the big toe on your “bad” foot lean out toward the other (smaller) toes? Is it trying to dive over or under the rest of the toes on the foot? Or are your big toes about equidistant from that line?

You should see a doctor about any consistent pain, but if that toe on your bad foot isn’t misaligned, you probably don’t have a bunion.

Arch support is key as is positioning of the big toe. As a bunion begins to form, often the big toe is pushed slightly toward the other toes instead of staying in place and helping to support the arch of the foot (keep it from flattening - the big toe has a big job to play). With the big toe out of position, more of your body weight rests on the unsupported arch and this pushes the big toe even farther toward the other toes. The podiatrist I saw told me that as the big toe is oriented toward the others, there isn’t the normal wear down of bone occurring where it should in the ‘bunion’ location - the bone begins to enlarge in that area - forcing the toe to remain or move farther out of position while the tendons adjust to hold the toe out of position. Because I was ‘pre-permanent’ bunion at that point (my term not hers), she recommended anti-pronation (anti arches falling, basically) support shoes or shoe inserts to help take some of the force off of pushing the big toe out of position. I haven’t found anti pronation arch support athletic shoes that are inexpensive, yet - the Dr. gave me a coupon to an athletic shoe company in town and they fitted me to $120 Brooks athletic shoes that have, hidden in the arch, a block of hard support (can’t feel it but it’s there) and it is this extra support that co$t$ extra and is not found on less expensive athletic shoes.

Then she suggested toe separators - she didn’t know how long I would need to wear them and said it can take a long time but using toe separators to push the big toe back into position where it takes some weight off of the arch helps. So I’ll put a link here for the kind of toe separator that is cheap, comfortable and can be ignored (not irritating to skin etc.) when worn. Note that there are different sizes - one of these offerings shows multiple sizes in one pack - that might help you determine what size to wear. This kind of toe separator are available at drug stores.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gel+toe+separator&x=0&y=0

The podiatrist had her staff make ‘casts’ of my feet and then had those sent to a company that makes orthotics (shoe inserts) and those were fantastic! I went back 4 months later and asked that another set be made from the same molds - wish I had done that up front because I wanted a pair for both casual and work shoes. Insurance paid for the orthotics both times but I was so sold on them that I would have paid for the second set out of pocket but only because molds had already been made and paid for by insurance. I’ve since heard that a local ‘shoe/foot’ store will make orthotics for runners for $90. You can buy gel orthotics (e.g., Costco) but it is really much better to have them made to meet the needs of your specific feet. Or perhaps get gel arch supports only (not the whole foot)?

So I wear the orthotics. After awhile I stopped wearing toe separators because I was using foam (scratch, compressible) ones that were irritating and the orthotics felt so good. I also made sure to purge any shoes that emphasized shifting the big toe out of position (shoes too pointy or with a tight seam across the toe box, or narrow toe box).

I recently started having pain in the bunion forming area and have started wearing gel toe separators. Pushing the toe back into position created odd achy foot pain as the arch and rest of the toes had to get used to it. After about 3 weeks of new adjustment pain - the bunion area joint feels great and I have gotten used to the gel inserts. I can still feel some tendon soreness but it is going away. The whole foot feels better AFTER it gets used to it. The left foot with this issue now feels entirely better so I am going to start wearing gel toe separator on the right foot (between the big toe and its neighbor) as I suspect some faint arch pain that I can ignore is due to slight shifting of the big toe.

Lastly, see if you can reduce inflammation. I discovered recently that my EFA 3’s and EFA 6’s were out of balance and that was causing excessive inflammation. I was using almond flour to make breads and using grape seed oil and other things that have 10’s of thousands of the wrong kind of EFA’s (I think it’s 6s) so I cut down on those and boosted my fish oil supplements that had more EFA 3s’ Strangely, inflammation went way down in my foot and an old knee injury that had been acting up. If I have almond bread for a few days, the inflammation comes back. I also take co-enzyme Q10 for sleep but I have read it is anti-inflammatory. In other words, have a look and see if there is some easy changes you can make to your diet or supplements that might reduce inflammation. And good luck! :)

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