Diagnosing And Treating Pain On The Top Of Your Feet
Living with foot pain can make life difficult, simply because you need your feet to get around. There are so many different causes of foot pain, including extensor tendonitis. This condition will leave you with pain primarily on the top of your feet. It could affect both of your feet or just one, and the pain can be so extreme that it could prevent you from being able to exercise, run, or play sports. Here are several things you should know about extensor tendonitis.
How Do You Know If You Have This Condition?
With all the problems your feet can develop, you may wonder how you can tell if the problem you have is extensor tendonitis. If you have this condition, your foot will hurt on the top only. There is a chance you may experience slight pain in the arch of your foot too, but this is rare. This is really the only symptom you will experience with this condition; however, some people will also develop bruising and swelling on the top of their foot.
There is also a test you can perform to verify that this is what is causing the pain. To perform the test, lift your toes up and press on them with your hand to cause friction. If you feel pain as you do this, you probably have extensor tendonitis.
How Does This Occur?
If you determine that this is the cause of your pain, you will probably be interested in finding out how it happened. Extensor tendonitis is a condition that causes inflammation in the tendons in your feet. Any form of inflammation to tendons or muscles will result in pain, and you may have developed this condition from one of these reasons:
- Pulling your calf muscles – The muscles in your calf are directly related to these tendons. If you recently completed any activity that caused your calf muscles to tighten, that could have also caused this problem. This is why it is vital to stretch your calf muscles before you run or perform any high-endurance activity that may involve a workout to your calf muscles.
- Wearing shoes that do not fit properly – If you wear shoes often that do not fit your feet properly, you may have placed strain on these muscles, which could have caused this problem to occur.
- Having irregular arches on your feet – Feet are created with arches; however, some people have flat feet, which means they do not have arches, and others have arches that are too big. Either of these conditions can lead to stretching and inflammation of the tendons in the feet. If you get pain on the top of your feet often, this could be the root cause of the problem.
How Can You Treat This Condition?
If this is the first time you are experiencing this particular pain, you probably developed the condition from one specific activity you performed. In this situation, you can treat it by allowing the tendons to heal. You can ice them to reduce the inflammation, and you can also take over-the-counter pain pills to help with the pain.
If this pain is something you experience often, it is likely that it is caused by either a bad habit you have with your feet or legs or by the arches you have in your feet. For chronic problems, a podiatrist may recommend foot orthotics. These are devices you can place in your shoes to help you obtain the right arches and support needed for your feet.
Living with foot pain can prevent you from doing all the things you need and want to do. If your pain is persistent, you may want to consider visiting a podiatrist to have your feet examined by a professional. For more information, contact a company like Advanced Foot & Ankle Center of Palatine.
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