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Foot/ankle pain and burning

(Kentucky)

It all started about 3 years ago. I would come home at night after walking the hospital floors all day and I would be ridden to the couch d/t extreme pain and swelling in my left ankle. The pain is located on the outside of my ankle and radiates to the top of my foot.you can see a vertical indentation of a line at all times. It looks completely different than my right ankle! If I stay off my ankle for a day or so the pain goes away. However, if i am on it for more than 30 minutes, the pain flares right back up! I have seen many doctors, had x-rays, and even an EEG! everything is negative. I know this isn't in my head and the pain keeps me from doing the things I love to do!

Please help!

ANSWER

Hi,

I would actually need to examine you to give you an accurate diagnosis, but the first thing that comes to mind based on your history is that of irritation to the peroneus longus tendon as it passes on the outside of the ankle.
In most cases that I see it is usually due to excessive pronation or flattening out of the foot during gait. This of course will be exacerbated by walking hard hospital floors where there is virtually no shock absorption available to the foot and ankle.
When a foot pronates or overly flattens out during gait, there is a stretching occurring on the medial side of the ankle and a jamming effect on the lateral side of the ankle. The peroneus longus tendon gets caught up in this jamming effect.
This is really all due to poor alignment of the ankle joint from the pronation and that is why the swelling will occur on the lateral side and not all around the ankle such as might be the case in an arthritic ankle.
The easiest thing to try would be an orthotic, but it has to be a decent orthotic which is hard to find in drug stores and supermarkets as they typically do not support the foot enough so they do not reduce pronation nor do they create better ankle alignment.
You could take a look at our Superstep orthotics as an affordable alternative.
In any event I would suggest you try an orthotic first; if for some reason that does not solve your problem than an MRI would be in order.

Marc Mitnick DPM
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Foot/ankle pain and burning

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