Sharp pain on top of my foot between the first and fourth metatarsals where they meet the highest point of the arch.
This could be tendonitis, which I have experienced before, or it could be the early onset of a stress fracture. This is in my left foot, which is the foot I jump off of for both jumps, as well as land on when hurdling, but the other foot is experiencing the same kind of pain to a lesser degree. I have never had a stress fracture before. The pain is at its worst when my foot is cocked, i.e. drive phase coming out of blocks.
I am currently icing four times a day and doing stim, but strangely I had some degree of relief after a hot shower yesterday. Apparently stress fractures are hard to find until they have already started to heal, is there any other diagnostic info I could draw on to figure out whether it is a tendon vs. a bone issue? Bone scan, MRI… worth it?
Also, what is the likelihood that I could actually break the foot (if it is in fact a stress frac.) if I wait another week and a half to take any significant time off?
How did this start? Did you just wake up one day and it flared up or has it slowly snowballed?
When i got stress fractures in my shins (from running, i also got a minor one from being kicked there ), it started as minor pain, which over the course of a month snowballed into something worse.
Regardless, i would get your foot checked out. A good coach/trainer should be able to figure this out.
It started last week, i can think of a few possible causes-
I was away for a few days without access to a track, so I had to do a hill workout on a steep asphalt street, another on a treadmill, without access to a whirlpool to ice. I was also wearing heels around for a day… not good.
One that seems most likely is a psychosomatic cause- worries and stress surrounding other issues gets channeled into a physical pain. I have had this happen to me before so it wouldn’t surprise me at all. The important thing is that this does not mean that the symptoms and the pain aren’t real, it just means that it was not necessarily an overload in volume that did it. The most volume-heavy portion of winter training was in the beginning of january, and I did not have any onset of this until about a week ago.
When the trainer was feeling around, he pushed on the bone right on the top of the arch which was horribly painful. The same spot did not seem to be a big problem when I felt it last night, but i am probably more cautious about it. The pain I tend to feel is actually further up right between the 1st and second metatarsals just below the toes.
), it started as minor pain, which over the course of a month snowballed into something worse.