Pinky Toe Pain

by Kayla
(SF)

Hello!

At the beginning of March I stubbed the side of my pinky toe on a door frame. It was very painful but I just carried on & went to a work conference the next day where I was on my feet all week. It was very sore & swollen/bruised for about 1 week and then the swelling went down. The reason I'm writing it because my toe still hurts/aches regularly. There is a spot on the side of my pinky toe where the toe meets the foot that is very tender when pushed on. It will occasionally still swell & is almost always red/slightly bruised looking. I can walk & bend the toe around fine, so I know it's not broken too bad, but it is still painful when I use it too much. My question is...would you recommend going into the doctor to check it out or can I just let it heal itself since it's just a toe?
I'm not sure if it's broken but the fact that it still hurts months after makes me think it wasn't just stubbed.

Thanks for any & all help!

Kayla

RESPONSE

Hi Kayla,

As I mention in many instances on this site, foot pain can take longer to heal then a similar pain elsewhere on the body, simply because every time you take a step you are essentially re-injuring an already injured area.

Having said that, you have no real way of knowing if the toe is fractured without an x-ray. Looking at a toe and pressing on it will not give you any insight.

Based on my math, it has been about ten weeks since you traumatized the toe. In most cases the pain should have been resolved, or at least dramatically improved. The argument could be made that wearing dress shoes and walking on it for the week after the accident certainly did not help the problem and may have actually made it worse. But whats done is done.

So, at ten weeks post trauma you have to decide it you need to see a doctor or not, and this all comes down to how much pain you are in. If you can soldier through, then do not go to the doctor, but if it is still very painful to walk then seeing a doctor should hopefully allow you to remedy the problem more quickly.

If you are concerned about the question as to whether it is fractured or not, at this point it is almost academic since fractures should be treated immediately after occurrence, not ten weeks later. The only exception to this would be if you actually have a fracture that has not healed, which is always a possibility.

If that should happen to be the case and it does happen from time to time then you will need medical attention in an effort for healing to occur. If there is an unhealed fracture, then you could expect to have some degree of pain indefinately.

Marc Mitnick DPM
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