r/sesamoid

I’m confused by sesamoiditis treatment because most posts here seem to be fractures or bipartite sesamoids, not typical sesamoiditis. Especially success stories! I think I’ve seen only a couple sesamoiditis success stories. Which is scary. It seems much worse and then surgery doesn’t seem to be an option for all failed sesamoiditis cases without clear bone involvement like BM edema.

Anyway, that said can anyone help with some questions about sesamoiditis if you’ve experienced it and done the research?

1. INITIAL BOOT NO MATTER THE SEVERITY
2. Why is sesamoiditis often given the same boot treatment as a fracture? Is this just to be safe? I even see this for people who have had it a long time and then get diagnosed — boot.
3. WHY NO BOOT FOR FLARES? WHY CANT INITIAL SESAMOIDITIS BE TREATED LIKE A FLARE?
4. I read about people having flares for weeks or months. What do these flares look like? Are they as bad as the initial sesamoiditis? I don’t understand why each flare doesn’t mean boot like you’re starting over if that’s how you treat it initially, but that’s because this injury makes no sense to my brain.

And then I guess I don’t see why a very minor sesamoiditis that someone can easily control initially with basic offloading doesn’t get better like a flare would.

3. WHY NO INFO ON SESAMOIDITIS ON DR BLAKES HEALING SOLE? There are just a few emails he’s shared from people but no guidance for sesamoiditis and a lot of his material is fracture specific, like exogen bone when the bone may be fine

4. IF SESAMOIDITIS IS MORE COMMON THAN FRACTURE (per studies), WHY IS ALL THE GOOD INFO ON FRACTURES? SHOULD WE JUST TREAT THEM THE SAME?

5. IF YOU HAVE SESAMOIDITIS AND YOU TREATED IT AS SOON AS YOUR SYMPTOMS STARTED DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE HEALED FASTER?

6. WHAT DID YOUR FIRST SESAMOIDITIS SYMPTOMS LOOK LIKE AND HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM A FLARE? how often do you have symptoms now and what does your daily life look like?

7. WHAT ROLE DO YOU THINK PT PLAYS IN SESAMOIDITIS VS FRACTURE TREATMENT? it seems like it would be more important, earlier anyway, since it likely related to mechanics and foot stuff

Maybe I’m being cherry-pick biased because I have “only” sesamoiditis, and it’s just feeling like it’s more hopeless and confusing than fractures because ultimately surgery isn’t always an option, especially if the cause of the sesamoiditis is unknown (which is seems to always be??)

How long did you boot?

Weight or non weight bearing?

While in boot, what did your daily life look like? Did you leave your house, go to a job, walk around for just chores? Exercise in other ways that didn’t use your boot?

Did you sleep in your boot? Watch tv in your boot?

How did you shower?

Did you wear the boot every time you walked or did you have some sort of oofas, recovery slides, or Birkenstocks you wore for some things like bathroom trips?

Did you do anything to help maintain the health of the other foot/ the rest of your body?

If your offloading stage was not with a boot (if you just wore shoes with dancer pad or something else), please tell me same general things about yours.

Hi everyone,

STRUGGLING. Feeling extreme despair. Etc etc.

Dancer pad is not working for me. I'm using 1/4" pads and can't figure out why it's not working.

I have FIBULAR/LATERAL sesamoid pain and pain on the lateral edge of the met head. I have a very prominent met head, even without swelling or the sesamoid sticking out from being inflammed.

Can anyone share with me some specific tips for dancer pad placement, or even better.. show me a pic. Especially if it's for fibular but if you think you have a setup that offloads them both, please share.

I've seen various placements in videos.

Also, please give me some textual details too, like how close is it to the edge of the big joint etc

Looking for people’s experiences with running long-term. I made a post a few weeks ago on r/sesamoid about running with sesamoiditis, and the responses weren’t exactly encouraging! Has this been a “career-ending” injury for anyone or is recovery possible? I would appreciate any input.

Just looking for some validation and some success stories. I’ve had sesamoid issues in my right foot since December. I didn’t go to a podiatrist about it until February. Doctor gave me dancers pads to wear for a month and said to maintain normal activity, told me she suspected sesamoiditis, but did not tell me much more about the injury or the long term healing process, just said the dancers pads would probably heal it. Pain was worse after another month so she ordered an MRI and yes it was sesamoiditis, she gave me a boot and said to wear it for 4 weeks and ordered custom inserts for me in the mean time. During this time I’ve started doing my own research and have come to understand a lot more about the condition and different people’s healing journeys. Because of this Reddit I found something that did actually help me, which was ordering an insert on Amazon, cutting out the sesamoid area, and wearing that inside the walking boot; that has helped some but surprise surprise I’m at the end of the four weeks and my foot is still in pain, and now the sesamoid area in the other foot has started hurting. I just had a follow up with my doctor today and she said to stop wearing the boot and wear my regular shoes with the inserts now. Told me nothing about what type of shoes to wear and said nothing on physical therapy. In my research on this Reddit and other places online I’ve really only heard about people actually healing by doing physical therapy. I told her this and she looked at me like I was crazy and said she could not see how physical therapy would help but would write a prescription for it if I really wanted to try it. Am I crazy?! Should I be going to another doctor? I feel like I am on my own here trying to do as much research as I can to try to heal, at times it can feel very hopeless but lately I have been feeling more positive knowing there are measures I can take to walk normally again, but am now just feeling confused by my doctor telling me physical therapy won’t do anything.

Hi everyone,

Not looking for advice about healing the injury, since I’ve read like every post on here, but looking to hear how disabled you are or were before you fully healed (or mostly healed). I don’t mean during the super acute first few weeks or months but long-term. If you’re now having chronic Sesamoid issues.

What type of sesamoid injury do/did you have and how functional were you day-to-day when it was not resolved but not brand new or during flares. Are/were you able to do chores? Work? Grocery shop? Use a stationary bike or rower? Do daily tasks but not the workouts you enjoy? Have you been unable to walk without a limp or for more than to move around your house for years?

I know long haul is substantial quality of life and depressing but what does that look like on a day to day?

Based on what you see here what’s the typical impact on long termers’ functionality?

I know people are more likely to post if the title resonates with them and it’s dire but please consider replying if your journey sucks/sucked but you have still been mostly functional too.

For those of you who’ve had tibial (aka medial) sesamoidectomy, did your medical team advise you to wear toe spacers post-op? If yes, starting when and for how long? On only the operated foot or on both feet? Were you advised to wear the toe spacer when on your feet, non-weight bearing, all the time, all the time except when sleeping, or something else?

I’m five weeks post left tibial sesamoidectomy. My orthopedic surgeon did not recommend wearing a toe spacer, but about half of the post-op recovery instructions I’ve found online from other doctors recommend wearing toe spacer on at least the operated foot at least much of the time. What were you told? Thoughts? Experiences?

Hi, I strongly suspect I got sesamoidits. It started exactly 1 month ago around my left bigtoe. It was very painful at first, but the pain reduced gradually after just a few days, which gave me hope that I would fully recover after a week or two.

However, it appears to just be.. stuck now? Over the past 3 weeks, I don't think I have improved one bit. The pain is just always lingering there at about the same level whenever I walk. It's not bad enough that I feel I need to see a doctor just for the pain, but I will if I need to do it to heal faster.

Thanks.

Just wanted to share my sesamoid story to offer a bit of optimism to others out there who are frustrated.

I first injured my foot in 2024 when warming up for a social doubles match on a slightly frozen court. Thought nothing of it at the time, assuming that I'd stubbed my toe, and stupidly played on for a few hours. The next days and weeks were painful to walk, and when things weren't improving I went to the physio. It initially got misdiagnosed as a medial toe ligament sprain, which wasn't improving despite months of rehab exercises. Eventually got referred for an MRI which confirmed sesamoiditis. Rather than go down the route of steroid injections (which sounded unlikely to fully resolve the issue) or surgery, I decided to attempt to self-manage a gradual return to sports.

Things that I have tried over three past 12 months that haven't really helped:

- Taping to help with toe alignment

- Anti inflammatory medication

- Strengthening exercises, stretching, balance work

- A variety of different insoles, including some specifically for ball of foot pain

Things that have somewhat helped:

- I switched my work shoes and started wearing HOKA Bondi 9s pretty much all the time. It was only when I did this that I realized how much my normal work shoes were aggravating my sesamoiditis.

- I changed tennis shoes from Adidas Barricades (my go to for ~20 years) to K-Swiss Hypercourts, based on positive reviews from elderly players and reading about the increased foam depth on the forefoot.

But the main thing which has almost fully resolved my pain is using a carbon fibre Morton Extension plate underneath my insole (both work and sports footwear). I sort of stumbled across this while mid deep dive into insoles research, but I can't believe how much of a difference it has made. The plate is very thin so still reasonably flexible, but takes a lot of the pressure off your MTP joint during flexion. I also experimented with full foot carbon fibre plates, but this was giving me pain in my outer toes, which the Morton Extension version isn't. They were pretty inexpensive on Amazon, I got a pack of 2 for about £40, and use them underneath Superfeet insoles.

I can now play hours of tennis again with only minimal discomfort, and no more waking up the following day with a throbbing foot.

So good luck to anyone out there who is struggling in their own sesamoid journey, and just know that there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Saw a highly renouned sport doctor in my area (Australia) and he basically said he would be very reluctant to do surgery and he doesn't see many of them because of complications, he said he would rather do a surgery on my calf muscles to reduce how tight they are before removing my sesamoids

He also said shockwave/bone stimulator probably wouldn't be very effective and he hasn't seen good results from that when he used them in the past and that this is just something ill have to manage

What do you guys make of this? I can basically live 95% pain free in my birks but my toe just gets stiff, I'm taking vitamin d doing contrast baths wearing toe spaces going on the bike to bring blood flow but my pain levels never really decreased from a 1-2

has anyone had any success healing sesamoiditis? need some hope because I do not want to do another sesamoidectomy.

I posted on here a while back mentioning that I might have a potential sesamoid injury back in March. I've had pain since February that followed about a week after healing a sprained ankle. Essentially, I just thought it was regular foot pain, tried compression socks, went to the doctor and did an initial xray and nothing came up so I bought supportive shoes and dancer pads for relief. I went to the doctor again on April 30th with no relief and the pain spread to the top of my foot and surrounding my big and second toe (is there a name for this toe idk???). I went for the MRI today after wearing the boot for about 5 days and got the results within 3 hours that the sesamoid is in fact badly fractured and have to continue on with the boot for about 2 months. Has anyone had any relief or success stories without surgery??? Im so tired at this point and just need to hear something positive :(

Hi

I am new to the group and looking for support. Short history, I am a advanced hiker and have done many long distances challenges. In 2022 I ruptured my right ankle ATFL and surrounding ligaments. The ankle consultant refused me a reconstruction based on the fact I have PTSD. Which is a little dissapointing and unfair.

Since the ATFL injury I have had sessomoditis twice in the left foot in 26 months. I have never had the issue before my right ankle ATFL rupture. The first time I had a cortisone and it worked and I have managed to stay mobile until 3 weeks ago when the same issue appeared again. Knowing what it was, I had a cortisone again, but this time it failed. I am now in an airboot/cam walker but nobody knows how long i should stay in it.

I have had custom moulded insoles made but they never really helped the first time. I thought I had been lucky with the first cortisone and symptom free for 26 months, I am gutted the issue is back and the cortisone failed.

I am now very conscious of how difficult sesamoditis is to fix and I do not want to come back out of the boot too soon.

Any advice for my situation is greatly appreciated.

How long were you instructed to lie down and elevate your legs post op? I’m going to go crazy lying around much longer.

My wife has been dealing with crippling Sesamoiditis since last August in her medial sesamoid bone in her right foot. MRI shows bi-partite fracture with potential avascular necrosis.

She has done a cortisone shot which failed. We met with a private Ortho surgeon and they can't tell if it's broken, AVN or sesamoiditis which was difficult to hear.

Has anyone here locally had any luck treating this injury? She's in so much pain and I feel like she's getting stonewalled at every turn. Just want to see her on her feet again. Any recommendations are appreciated.