2nd Metatarsal Stress Fracture?

Hey,

I have had a stress fracture in the second metatarsal of my right foot. Mine came about exactly the same way: no real pain, but all of a sudden, I woke up one day with relatively severe pain in my foot, but I'd never had a stress fracture, so I didn't know what to think. I went for a run later that day and ended up limping a few miles home after a few miles of progressively worse pain. It took a couple days for it to show up, but I eventually had a purplish bruise on the skin above the bone. Xrays initially showed nothing and the dumbass nurse practitioner told me there was "no way" I had a stress fracture, so I went out for a run in which I thought my foot would explode after about 30 seconds. I got another x-ray about 2 weeks after the first one and it showed remodeling, so while the crack in the bone was too small to see, the bone regrowth was visible, proving the fracture.

The swelling and localized pain sounds very much like my situation. Do you have a bruise? One other thing; your mileage sounds pretty close to mine. I suppose I was only doing 70-80 at the time, but it was almost purely mountain running that was significantly slower than road running, so my actual amount of training time was pretty comparable to when I do 90-100 road miles (and I've hit up to 138 miles in a week, so this isn't a stretch for me either). My fracture originated as a result of a 52 mile road run I did (being used to running almost purely trails or track and then running a non-cushy concrete/asphalt surface for 7 hours in very very beat up shoes with ~1000 miles on them), although it may have built up for some time before that, which is generally the case.

Based on your information provided, I'd say there's a 95% chance you have a stress fracture, 99% chance if you also have a bruise on the skin above the bone, one of the hallmarks of a stress fracture. To be honest though, this is not as severe as it sounds. I did a handful of stupid things when I had my stress fracture (tried to run a few times before it was diagnosed, never used a boot or crutches, and even at one point jumped over something and landed on my bad foot, which seemed to set me back quite a bit) and my foot was still better after 7 weeks or so. If you're as proactive as possible, don't attempt to run, always wear the boot, and use crutches, you should probably be running again in around 5 weeks. I'd say to take 6 to be safe though, as you don't want it to come back to haunt you.

Well, five-six weeks is a pretty good prognosis for a stress fracture. Thanks for relating your experience. Commiseration always helps.

There is swelling and there may have been some slight bruising a day or so after it occurred. Guess my number has finally come up for one of these. So much for the 50k, but there are always other races.

Get a boot on ebay. search for fracture boot, CAM walker boot, or Bledsoe boot. Should run around 50 bucks. If you get one at your local medical supply store it will probably run you 150 to 200 bucks for the exact same boot ("fitting fee").

Make sure you get a boot either high or low top and not a fracture shoe.

Extensor tendonitis