The side of my foot took a hard hit from a low line drive this afternoon. Continued playing with minimal discomfort. Six hours later it’s fairly painful to walk on. However, there’s no discoloration and very minimal swelling. If a bone was broke, would not there be swelling and bruising?
Not necessarily, I had a broken foot bone a couple years ago with similar pain but lack of gross distortion or discoloration. IANAD but I recommend going for an x-ray. If it is broken, they won’t want you walking on it, because if it sets wrong it will continue to be painful and at some point they’ll have to re-break it to fix it.
Oddly enough, when I had my break I very clearly heard a little snapping sound, though as I said the accompanying sensation and aftereffects weren’t severe enough to convince me right away that it was a break. If you heard it go, then I bet yeah, it’s broken.
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of dropping a very heavy wooden box on the top of my foot. Research on the internet claimed that it’s really difficult to diagnose a break in certain parts of the foot without an x-ray. Symptoms are just too similar to a bruise.
…Turns out the x-ray showed I didn’t have a break. Thanks for asking.
-D/a
In my days of X-raying trauma stuff, I saw numerous partial (and more-painful ‘complete’) fractures of the 5th metatarsal tuberosity. Many times, there was little easily visible evidence of injury for at least a few days, never in some as well. A little pushing on area with fingers can help lots more than relying on bruising/swelling, particularly in that area, at least in the hundreds+ of cases I saw rather similar to the OP’s.
This area is on outside (lateral) edge of foot and if you ran your finger along from front of heel area, pressing inward gently, you can feel the ‘bump’ of end of bone kind of along rear of mid-foot. The knob at the end is infamous for breaking when pressure/energy is applied to lateral edge of foot or landing from a jump with foot rolling under some (but not enough to mess with ankle joint). I particularly remember a softball line-drive hit that broke a player’s foot during the Ladies’ National Softball tourney held in OKC every year. Deja vu??
If its that area of base of 5th m-tarsal, it can be deceptive, showing as just ‘simple pain’. Seen lots of total breaks with minimal visual indicators, and frequently not as much pain as seen with roughly comparable sized fx’s elsewhere - that’s my point basically. Don’t ignore ongoing pain with it, either. you do not want to affect your normal gait as that can lead to other probs down the road from walking differently, etc.
Hope its all OK for ya 
Medical advice is best suited to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
You should see an orthopedist if you can. It’s very easy for a foot injury to cause problems down the road if not treated properly. You’re likely to change your gait and step to to go easy on one foot, resulting in additional strains on the rest of your foot, your other foot, and both legs. If you can’t see an orthopedist, try to keep off your feet as much as possible to let it heal, apply ice whether you see swelling or not, give your legs and feet as much rest as possible to allow the injury to heal, then do some coordinated exercise to bring yourself back up to par. Running and bicycling would be good, but give yourself time to fully heal first.
Mine wasn’t apparent until the next day, but the large purplish discoloration that is usually the tell-tale of a broken bone wasn’t dissproven by the X-ray. I can say that breaking bones at the joints hurts like a MFer though when you are trying to regain mobility though.
Err on the side of caution, I’ve known a lot of people who haven’t realized they have broken bones (especially in the hands and feet) until it’s too late to set them properly.
Another warning post…a couple of years ago, I was wearing dressy boots while riding my 600 lb motorcycle. Idiot me! I almost slid in some gravel and stomped my soft sole on some rocks. Of course, I just ignored it while hoping it would go away. There was no bruising or swelling, afterall. It didn’t. The pain just kept getting worse.
Cue last November…when I had surgery on my foot that left scars, no more fuck-me shoes with those ugly lines…and I was on my butt with my foot in the air for 6 weeks.
To the OP, you really REALLY don’t want to do this. The frustration and boredom is so intense…not to mention that nobody cleans my home like I do. It was terrible.
Get checked out before you suffer like I did.
Hear that SanDiegoTim? No more fuck-me shoes. Think about that.
Whereas in my case, I limped over to the ER within 24 hours of my foot-ouchie (btw, it occurred while playing frisbee on a sidewalk, came down on the edge of the curb and rolled my foot under just like Ionizer described).
They looked at it, they saw a metatarsal was broken, they put me in an orthopedic boot and gave me a pair of crutches and a very stern KEEP YOUR WEIGHT OFF IT lecture, and after six weeks and two routine orthopedic checkups I was walking just fine and starting to work back up to my regular exercise schedule.
No surgery, no cast, no bed rest, and now, three or four years later (huh, I see in my previous post I said “a couple” but I’m sure it was more than two years but less than five, how time flies, eh?), I’m not even 100% certain which foot it was.
Early diagnosis and treatment can avoid a lot of trouble.
So what’s the conclusion? Didja?
When I first went to college, and did a lot more walking than ever before, I got a nice “march fracture” in one foot. The doctor compared it to bending a piece of metal back and forth until it breaks. It never felt like a broken bone; it hurt, but was never agonizing. I had to wear hard shoes and use a cane for a couple weeks.
Hope yours is not serious!
You were incredibly lucky 
Two winters ago I fell off our back stairs taking the big dog out to potty and I not only sprained my ankle, but also broke two metatarsals. I had the exact same treatment as you; however; there was no way I could stay off it for six weeks because of work, so I had to buy a special ortho boot. I hobbled around for a good three months and came home, refusing to move from the couch.
Everything eventually healted, The affected toes, though – now they overlap and they don’t sit straight in line with my others. They have affected my gait. I also have trouble wearing certain shoe/sneaker styles because of them.
Think hard about the amount of future mobility you’d like to enjoy. You could be right, it could be just a bruise. If you’re wrong, left untreated, it could lead to all sorts of issues, that could impact your future mobility.
A badly healed broken leg, left my MIL with a limp all her life, eventually leading to limited mobility, leading to weight gain and obesity (harder to exercise with mobility issues!), and then a replaced knee, and a replaced hip. In the end she walked with crutches, where she could go, and what she could do, grew more limited with every year. Also these kinds of surgeries can lead to arthritis in later years.
She may well have avoided, the weight gain and obesity, the major joint replacement surgeries and recoveries, as well as years of ever decreasing mobility, if she’d sought medical attention in a timely fashion. By the time she did, the die was somewhat cast, as they say.
The hard truth is you know you did ‘something’ to it. The smart thing to do would be consult someone with the skill set to know if it requires attention - now, rather than later.
Please consult a doctor. Don’t be foolish with your future.