On Sunday I was walking down some steps and one of them gave way. The nearest I can figure out is that my foot slammed into the next lower step. The part of my foot right below my three middle toes still hurts about the same and hasn’t seemed to get any better for the last couple days.
I went to the doctor and he said that I might have fractured it or chipped something when I hit. So he sent me for xrays and said to keep it elevated, use ice and take some Aleve regularly. If it’s determined on Monday that it is fractured, then what happens next? Will anything change or will he just keep telling me to do the same thing?
Yes, I know, I should have asked him these questions, but I forgot.:smack: Thanks for any help and/or speculations that you might have given that I know that you are not a doctor (blah blah blah).
When I broke my foot (a long, long time ago) I was in a walking cast for about eight weeks.
Your time in a cast (if you spend any time in a cast) will probably be substantially less. I was told that eight weeks was an unusually long time to be in a cast for a foot fracture, but what I had was called a “lazy spiral” or “green-stick” fracture of the fifth metatarsal, which results in a lot of bone surface area that has to repair itself.
Depends on how bad the break is. I’ve fractured bones in my feet and ankles before and I’ve had a full cast (for broken ankle), splints or biosplints for broken toes (a biosplint is basically taping the broken toe against the uninjured adjacent toe) and once I had to wear an orthopedic shoe (but no cast) for a month or two along with regularly icing the foot, keeping weight off it as much as possible and taking a lot of ibuprofen.
I imagine that “staying off it” will be a definite part of the prescription.
I broke a metatarsal (one of the pieces connecting the foot bone to the toe bone) last fall. I did sort of what you did: mis-stepped off a curb and rolled the foot so I came down with all my weight on the side of it, unsupported. Very very ouch.
However, I had no cast and no need for icing or painkillers after the first few days, but I had to be on crutches for a few weeks, with Ace bandages and an orthopedic shoe on the foot. You start putting weight on it when it stops hurting if you put weight on it, and gradually resume normal use, but you’ll be off the track team for at least four to six weeks. (A more complicated foot-bone break might require more complicated and/or prolonged treatment.)