Letsrun docs: diagnose me

It might be a very deep blister, same thing happened to me and a callous covered the blister, I thought I was never going to run again because of the pain. After a few days I looked at my foot in depth again and saw a little sign of a blister, so I took a knife out and punctured the skin and BAM a shot load of watery fluid came flooding out and an ease of euphoria came shortly after.

I have had this. On the ball of my foot I had a old callous. It was sharp pain when ever I landed on it. It sucked. I went to the orthopeadic and. he shaved some of the callous off and put a soft pad in my insole.

Not sure what happened but it went away. I think the funny thing about running is an acute pain gets in your head, then when something else hurts, the original goes away. Humans are funny

Callus's can cause sharp pain as you are describing. Get an over the counter pumice stone. Soak your foot in some epsom salt and when the skin is moist then use the pumice stone to work the dead skin off the callus.

Callus's are cause by friction so either from ill-fitting shoes, bony prominence or some combination. If the callus is too thick and doesnt come off from a pumice stone then goto a Podiatrist to get it shaved off with a scapel. They will most likely get you felt padding to prevent friction in that area when you walk/exercise. Hope you feel better soon!

footandanklesolution.com

I've had a foot problem for around a year where the arch of my feet hurts whenever I run for 15 minutes or more. It goes away after about 10 minutes of sitting down but it's completely stopped me from training and racing and I've been going to PT for several months and that hasn't helped. Has anybody had this or heard of anything similar. Also the pain flares up whenever I run up hills and foot massages seem to be a short term soliton.

Foot probs wrote:

Lately I've had a small chronic pain on my foot. I have built up a callouse on the balls of my feet, especially thick on the very inside. The pain is there, on the very inside but still bottom of my foot, on the ball (sorry if that description is hard to follow.)

Thoughts are metatarsalgia although that's so broad it's more of a symptom than anything.

Have you ever had anybody analyze the shape of your foot? There's kind of a list of foot-shape quirks that predispose you to the type of pain you describe if it is in fact "metatarsalgia" (which is, like you say, more of a clinical symptom than anything else). High arches, Morton's toe (second toe longer than big toe), wide feet, hammertoes, and longer-than-normal metatarsals will put undue pressure on the ball of your foot, causing callousing and inflammation/flaring of the nerves in your feet. Additionally, mid/forefoot strike will just compound these factors.

Things you can do to alleviate these: wear shoes that don't cram your toes together in the toe box (Altra has kind of made a brand around this idea), minimize the effects of a high arch by tossing any shoes that have a significant heel-toe drop, and accept that the minimalist fad is not for you--get some cushy shoes. Gradually working into training blocks should help let your feet adjust to the stressers and icing the balls of your feet after runs to keep inflammation in check should help too.

Best of luck! Don't be afraid to take time off to let the pain go away now before getting back at it with your training. It can be pretty debilitating to have blisters there on the balls of the feet, and if they never get a chance to heal you'll just keep making them scream with every run.