A Birth Defect? At 53?

“You’ve got a birth defect.”

“What?”

That’s sort of how the conversation went at my last appointment with my podiatrist. You see, I’m still dealing with pain in my left foot—the one where I broke my big toe. Last week I started getting twinges (putting it mildly) of pain in the ball of my foot that felt like someone was holding a handgun against it and pulling the trigger. Even when I was sitting with my foot elevated, I’d still get the pains. They were excruciating. I’d rate them between an eight and a nine on a one-to-ten pain scale, even with me on hydrocodone four times a day.

They backed off after a day, but not completely. I’d still get hits from out of nowhere. Bad enough to report to my podiatrist at last week’s appointment. To be honest, I thought they were coming from my broken sesamoid bone. My podiatrist determined the pains were bad enough for him to run another set of X-rays.

He determined that my sesamoid bone was indeed still fractured, but that it was not the source of my pain. That’s when he advised me of my birth defect. “‘Pigeon toed,’ is what they call it,” he said. I thought pigeon toed was something else entirely. Anyway, he literally glued a pad beneath the 2nd and 3rd metatarsal bones and glued supporting tape all around the perimeter of my foot.

(Secondary to all of this was the fact that my big toe had developed another infection. Put me on another ten days of Augmentin and hope that I don’t have to have a bone scan run.)

Just a day or two ago, I got the report from the visit. His diagnoses: congenital metatarsus adductus with metatarsalgia (that second link will want you to whitelist it in your ad blocker). Basically, 53 years and change ago, my foot should have been put in a cast to correct the problem with the bones. Since that wasn’t done, I now have something sometimes referred to as “stone bruise” disorder, probably due to damage I received when I fell and broke my toe (and sprained everything else). In the worst cases, surgery is called for to correct the problem(s) related to the deformity.

My wife’s take on this? “Get your back fixed first.” My response? “I’ve had two, maybe three doctors say that there’s no surgical fix for my back. There’s a surgical fix for my foot. Fix my foot first, then let the pain management doctor (if he accepts me for treatment—another story) take care of my back.”

It’s a pain in the arse, is what it is.

Anyway, all of the padding and tape is supposed to come off today. I’ll discuss possible remedies with him after we figure out if the infection in my big toe is truly gone.