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The response to the question below was authored by Marc Mitnick DPM

Pain at the base of my Big left toe


(Australia)

I do martial arts and was sparring one day using kicks and felt pain as normal but it wasn't until the next day that I started to feel the sharpness of it. The next day I started feeling sharp pain in the base of my left big toe that comes and goes. At times I will be walking and then all of a sudden I feel sharp pain that briefly affects my walking and then it goes. I can move the toe normally but it seems to have a limited range of movement to before. It doesn't hurt to touch or manipulate and feels like the pain is nerval (if that's a word) or from the tendons. The pain feels like a nerve is being cut with a hacksaw but only for 2 or 3 seconds. I have a fight in 3 weeks and was wondering if you could recommend treatment to rehabilitate the injury as best I can before my fight. Thank you in advance for your help :)


ANSWER
Hi,

If time is of the essence due to your fighting schedule than you should probably see a foot specialist in your area as this sounds like it will probably require some treatment.
You should have an x-ray to rule out a chip fracture of some sort although your problem sounds more like a soft tissue problem, but an x-ray should be taken any way.
As far as a soft tissue injury goes, two things come to mind. One is turf toe which is due to an over extension of the great toe which I suppose could have occurred while sparring. This is basically an over stretching of the ligament on the bottom of the great toe that attaches the toe to the first metatarsal. If you manually bend the great toe backwards (towards you) and you get that pain sensation then turf toe might be the issue.
The second possible issue that comes to mind is a sesamoiditis which is an inflammation of one of two small bones that lie under the first metatarsal but even though they are further back from where you are complaining of pain, they are involved in the motion of the great toe and they are a common source of forefoot pain.
In addition to those two possible problems there is also the chance that you just did some quirky damage to the base of the great toe simply as a result of your sparring.
Again if you need to get this "fixed" as soon as possible, I would again suggest you see a foot specialist in your area.

Marc Mitnick DPM
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Wonderful advice

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