5 Common Causes of Foot Pain (and How We Can Help)

Take a look at your feet and appreciate how these relatively small appendages have such an enormous job carrying you through the world. In fact, by the time most people hit age 50, their feet have logged about 75,000 miles.

Given the responsibility your feet have in terms of support and mobility, it should come as no surprise that foot pain is a common complaint here at LaSante Health Center. To help you narrow the potential culprits before seeing one of our experienced podiatrists, our team pulled together this list of causes of foot pain.

1. Stress fractures

If you’re dealing with a nagging foot pain that flares when you’re actively using your feet, it might be a stress fracture. Combined, your feet contain about a quarter of the total bones in your body (26 in each foot), so stress fractures aren’t uncommon.

In many cases, stress fractures develop over time, and the pain typically flares when you move around. Another indicator of a stress fracture is tenderness in a specific area of your foot. 

The best way to determine whether you have a stress fracture is to come see us for an X-ray.

2. Bunions and hammertoes

Another common road to foot pain is progressive foot deformities like hammertoes and bunions. Bunions alone affect about 1 in 5 people to some degree.

With bunions and hammertoes, there’s not only an imbalance in your feet, they each create new points of friction — for example, the bony bump that forms at the base of your toe with a bunion and the upturned middle joint of your toe with a hammertoe.

These new points of contact can become inflamed and create no small amount of foot pain.

Unlike other foot conditions, hammertoes and bunions are fairly obvious to diagnose.  As for treatment, we can help you prevent the progression of the foot deformity and pad your feet in the meantime. But with severe hammertoes and bunions, the best solution is surgical correction.

3. Ingrown toenails

For such a small issue, ingrown toenails can bring a world of pain. This issue typically develops in your big toe and occurs when the edge of the nail grows into the flesh surrounding the nail.

As a result, there’s incredibly sensitive and painful inflammation that won’t go away until the nail is removed. And the best way to remove the nail is to come see us. We can remove the piece of nail in just minutes, which should provide you with immediate relief.

4. Gout

There’s a painful form of arthritis called gout, which affects about 12 million Americans. With gout, uric acid buildup can lead to crystal-like formations in the joints in your big toe, and during a gout flare-up, the pain can be severe.

So if you have severe pain in your big toe for no obvious reason, it might be gout. To figure that out definitively, please come see us for an evaluation. If we do find gout, we can treat it and better control flare-ups.

5. Plantar fasciitis

If your foot pain is along the bottom of your foot and in your heel, and it flares when you first walk after long periods of inactivity (like when you sleep), it could be plantar fasciitis. 

This condition is the most common cause of heel pain, and it is treatable with medications, steroid injections, splinting, and stretching.

Less common causes of foot pain

We’ve reviewed five prevalent drivers of foot pain, but the list is far from complete. Other causes of foot pain include:

• Arthritis
• Bursitis
• Tendinitis
• Plantar warts
• Flat feet

The best way to find relief from foot pain is to see one of our foot health specialists. To get started, we invite you to book an appointment online or call us at our Brooklyn, New York, clinic at 718-395-5071. Easier still, we welcome walk-ins during our hours of operation.  

Our team proudly serves the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.