I've apparently got one of these and it hasn't resolved in 3 or 4 months. Anybody else?
How does it present?
Hi Aitarg...Yes, had one years ago, had it removed by the foot doctor, and all good. I don't believe they resolve on their own, they just keep getting worse, as mine did. Mine was on the bottom of my foot, near my toes, very painful!!! I could hardly walk. I wish you luck!!
It feels as if someone has implanted a small water balloon on the bottom of my foot, right at the base of the 2nd & middle toes. The balloon never completely empties so it's pushing the 2nd toe toward the big toe. If I stand or walk, it''s as if someone pumps in 1/4 cup of water into that tiny space. Burning and very painful, extremely difficult to stand or walk once it starts. Also unpredictable.
I doubt there's an SS connection, but who else would I ask 😀
What did the doctor do, Deidra? Did they cut into your foot? It sounds as tho yours and mine are in the same place.
Sounds awful! I hope you can soon get it removed.
I had never heard of a neuroma so I had to look it up. But there is something I had in my foot years ago that felt like a pebble in my shoe. Which is how the Mayo Clinic described your condition. Anyway I had a plantars wart. It is very uncomfortable and would stay there until you treated it. Is it possible that you are wrong on your diagnosis?
A couple of years ago I had the same thing, but it turned out just to be a massive corn in my case, due to wearing a pair of shoes that were too loose and rubbed the ball of my foot. It went away spontaneously after I stopped wearing the shoes.
However, it didn't separate my toes, as aitarg is describing, and I don't think a plantar wart would do that either.
I am so often wrong, Amkoffee, anything's possible. But I had a plantar's wart as a child on the other foot. The neurons suggestion came from the ER doc when I went in with a pinched nerve last week. My own doc in April thought maybe it was a stress fracture so I asked The Most Handsome Man I Have Ever Seen Outside Hollywood if he'd have them xray that foot while scanning my hip and other leg. Neuroma was his pre- & post-xray diagnosis. "Sooner or later you'll have to get it taken care of by a podiatrist," were his parting words. It's the surgical possibility that has me concerned, don't think they can give me steroid injection (s).
I wish changing shoes would help. My big toes both curl up (closed head injury @ 18-24 months) so I wear very good sandals most of the time, with great arch support.
Hi aitarg, I wasn't suggesting changing shoes would help you, just remarking that it worked for a plantar corn. It does sound like yours might be a neuroma.
I loved your description of your doc as TMHMIHESOH! Wish I had one like that. My GP looks like a tubby little teddy bear. That being said, he's absolutely adorable. I always feel I want to take him home with me at the end of a consultation! He's also a fantastic doctor who gives me up to 40 mins per consultation - much of which he spends chatting about UK television and movies - and really listens. He's a real little gem even if he isn't handsome.
I do hope you can find a solution for your foot problem. Maybe start with a podiatrist, in the hope that it might be something simpler than a neuroma? Seems to me you have enough health problems without having to cope with that one too.
Talking of having enough health problems already - four days ago while working at my computer I suddenly developed a central scotoma (blind spot) in both eyes. It was an opaque grey circle - and it was getting rapidly bigger. Was I in a panic! Convinced it was a TIA (at least) I immediately packed a bag in case I had to go to the hospital. Kept grinning at myself in the mirror to make sure I didn't have a facial weakness (I didn't) but was scared I was going to lose my sight altogether as more and more of the centre disappeared.
As there was no one to drive me, I sat down at the phone to call an ambulance - at which point the thing suddenly turned into the revolving spokes of a wheel. I held off calling, to see what would happen, and sure enough it started moving off slowly towards the right, then turned into a crescent shape with zig-zags and flashing lights in it. At this point I recognised it as a migraine aura - in spite of the fact I've never had one before in my life. It broadened out to what looked like an expanse of rippling water with the sun on it, filling the right side of my visual field, then gradually withdrawing off the edge. The whole episode lasted 25-30 mins, not followed by headache or nausea. No recurrence.
Still concerned, as I didn't think migraines could start in your 70s, I googled it - only to find this isn't all that rare, and it's common for late-onset migraine not to be accompanied by headache. Most experts think there's no cardiovascular link, but a small number make a link with increased risk of TIA. The teddy-bear is on holiday till the end of this month, but I think I might touch base with him when he gets back anyway.
Yes, they cut between the toes, and took the neuroma out and stiched it up. Left it feeling numb all these years to this day. It's been over 25 years. I don't believe it had anything to do with my SS, it had to do with wearing high heels all those years! What we suffered for our beautiful shoes! But, sometimes it just happens even if you wear good comfortable shoes. Now I have such problems with my feet due to the neuropathy, due to my SS, I mostly wear my 20year old Birkenstocks, as they are the most comfortable, and in winter I wear my Uggs. I only wear my "pretty" shoes if we go out to dinner, so out the door, sit, and home!! LOL Find a good foot surgeon, and have them give you an opinion, and if they take it out, do what they say!!! I did too much walking, and had a lot of swelling and pain, but I also had my bunion taken care of at the same time. I don't suggest having both done at the same time unless you have time to stay off of the foot!!! I wish you luck!! Just be a good patient and do what they tell you!
Yikes on the migraine aura, Lily. I wouldn't have had a clue.
TMHMIESOH is an ER doc, so I may never see him again. Made sure I enjoyed him while I was there😎
Some of the sites I've browsed suggest that changing shoes might help, that 's why I said that. I quit going barefoot in the house -- a lifelong love of mine -- and now wear my supportive sandals even indoors as the arch support helps a lot.
I agree: Moratorium NOW for all is us on new/worsening health issues! Listen up, universe, we're not kidding here!
Aitarg
Sounds like the vestibular physiotherapist I saw when I had the attack of BPPV (positional vertigo) earlier this year. That got pretty physical too - they throw you about a bit when performing the Epley manoeuvre to provoke nystagmus so they can check whether they're getting your errant inner ear crystals back in the right place.
He was lovely too. I was quite nervous, having had positional vertigo 25 years earlier but in the other ear. That time I saw a hopeless ENT doctor who botched the manoeuvre, causing so much nausea I threw up on his consulting room floor. How's that for poetic justice?
Seeing how jittery I was, the physio kept giving me hugs throughout the procedure, calling me "good girl" and "darling". Really set my poor heart aflutter! I was slightly tempted to bang my head against a wall after that, so I'd dislodge the crystals again and have to go back to him. But only very slightly tempted... anyone who's had BPPV will know what a relief it is to get shot of it!
So sorry to hear about not being able to go barefoot around the house, particularly in summer. Poor you! I'm in a 7th-floor apartment, directly under a flat roof, with east-west aspects so I get the sun all day. Our homes never have aircon, so when we get a spell of warm weather (up to 95°F in the shade in recent weeks) my place heats up like an oven and stays that way. I always have hot feet at the best of times, so my only relief is walking barefoot on the cool ceramic tiles that cover most of my floors. I really hope you can get some relief.
Did you instruct this best-looking doctor in the whole world to gently caress your foot as they X-rayed it? LOL
Hello Lily. I read your posts so often I feel like you are a personal friend! About the migraine auras: I am now 72 and have been getting them, exactly as you describe, since 1989, sometimes moving off to the right and sometimes moving off to the left, always visible in both eyes with a 'space' that I have presumed is the optic nerve entry. I was teaching at the time of the first one and it was lunchtime and I asked an ex-nurse biology teacher (like me) on staff about it and she made the TIA suggestion and possibity of a stroke and left me to go off to teach my next class! I was totally stressed at the time and that didn't help! At first I thought they were hormonal then menopause came and went and they didn't go with it and I decided they were from stress. I still get them but have had periods where they haven't occurred for years then back they will come every month maybe. This year, despite having a devil of a year so far, I have had none of these auras. So, they remain a mystery and I hate biological mysteries but they are a mere brief inconvenience. I wish they were my only problem! I do hope you are wrong about the stroke link. Cheers from wintry Australia.
Hello Aitarg. I do enjoy your posts; they make me smile, not so easy these days. I do not have your foot problem but have pronating feet and got debilitating ankle pain earlier this year because of tendons rubbing on the side under the ankle bone. I had not been wearing my orthotics indoors or out in the garden - like you, loved just socks or bare feet in the house and the little canvas shoes were so easy to slip on when going outside. Alas, alack, now I must wear the orthotics and heavy shoes inside. If it isn't one thing, it's another! Cheers to you also, from chilly Australia.
Hi Maureen
Tendons rubbing inside the ankle sounds excruciating! I am glad that there is some way to ease that a bit. Total drag, yes, about orthotics & heavy shoes indoors.
I mat have brought this neuroma upon myself: I bought some very cute, lime green and black flip flops made of a squashy, waffle-weave substance. One day I wore them while running errands which included shopping in 2 stores. Before I got home ,,, well, i doubt that this could've caused a bundle of nerves to suddenly go nuts, but can't help thinking that the problem might've waited longer to show up had i not been such an old fool. Will ask the foot doctor.
Chilly Australia? My ignorance is showing because I never know how cold it gets there, just that for whatever reason the Southern Hemisphere doesn't tend to get as cold as matching Northern Hemisphere latitudes. We've had so little really cold weather in our last 10-12 winters that it's getting harder to call them that. I 'm in Austin Texas and yesterday we hit 107°F, 41.666°C. How chilly is it where you are?
[I babble along about the weather because I got up to a heat-shifted house this morning: bolt on door from house to attached garage eon't slide home and garden gate latch on same side of house won't fit into the catch mechanism due to gate /fence further separation away from house. Am in shock! On the other hand, I have a home with working AC, so I'll get over this, lol]
Hi Maureen,
Greetings from (fairly) sunny Belgium.
I suppose if you've been getting these migraine auras since 1989 and you're still hale and hearty now, you don't have too much to worry about! I have to say the the majority of medical sites I've looked at since this happened have said there's very little evidence to link late-onset aura with stroke, and not much to link it with TIA either. Late onset aura is defined as starting above the age of 60, so there's already a statistically increased risk of TIA in this age group, which muddies the waters.
In any case I'm not going to worry about it. Though I'm by no means ready to shuffle off this mortal coil, I've exceeded my biblical three-score-years-and-ten, and I reckon we all gotta die of something!
What freaked me out most during my attack was that I initially had the opposite problem to yours. Far from having a central "space", my scotoma started out centrally - a static, solid grey blob that blacked everything out, and then started growing rapidly. It wasn't till it started flashing and revolving, which must have been 5-10 mins after the onset, that it dawned on me it might be a migraine aura. I was shaking like a leaf by that time! When it started moving slowly off to the right, and especially when the zigzags appeared, I felt a huge surge of relief. I was still a bit worried at first, as I'd never heard of this kind of thing starting in the 70s, but most of the research I've done so far has reassured me. It's been 12 days now and I haven't had another one. Incidentally, a poster I met over on the migraine board, who also had a late onset, said her neurologist told her the latest onset he'd come across was in a woman of 90.
Sorry to hear about the foot problems you describe in your post to aitarg. I certainly know all about tendon pain, and can heartily sympathise!
Hijacking this one, aitarg. (On the assumption I can actually get a post through - dunno what's going on lately! I'll take a copy anyway.)
That may not be a neuroma after all, or even if it is it might clear up spontaneously. As mentioned in an earlier post, I once had something similar. A few years back I bought a very comfortable pair of shoes in the sales - the expensive Ecco brand, highly reputed on this side of the Atlantic. They were a bit too wide for my rather narrow feet, but had criss-cross straps that held them firmly in place. They didn't look very elegant but they were wonderfully comfortable, which is what I go for these days. I was, however, aware that my feet moved around inside them a lot.
After quite a short time of wearing them, I too noticed a pain in the ball of my foot, but not as close to my toes as what you describe. It went away that summer, when I wore lighter shoes, but returned the following winter, when I started wearing the criss-cross shoes again. I'm a bit slow on the uptake, so it took me a couple of years to figure out it was the shoes that were causing the problem. I developed a big, painful lump on the ball of my foot, but about an inch-and-a-half back from the root of my toes, and lined up between my second and third toes. In the end it hurt whichever shoes I wore. I interpreted it as a corn, albeit a very big one, but maybe it wasn't. I never saw anyone about it.
I eventually donated the offending shoes to a charity store. It took another couple of years for the whatever-it-was to disappear completely, but it cleared up without treatment. If I press hard over where it used to be, I can just about feel something like the hard centre of a very small corn, but it never bothers me these days.
My toes weren't forced apart by it, but I suspect that's because the rubbing happened in a different place on my foot. It may have been the base of the thong between your toes that did the damage in your case. I'd advise patience, as well as identifying and avoiding any footwear or behaviour that makes the pain worse in the meantime. I also think the podiatrist may be able to help. I'd advise waiting a bit longer before going in for surgery or steroid injections.