“There is a broken toe pandemic,” said John Keeling, orthopedic surgeon at Chevy Chase, Md. He estimates that the number of broken toes seen at his desk has tripled or quadrupled.
Ben Pearl, a podiatrist whose practice is Arlington Foot and Ankle, said he has “absolutely” seen an increase in broken toes, “and the short reason is that with the pandemic, people are spending more time on the House.”
Jane Andersen, a podiatrist at Chapel Hill Foot & Ankle Specialists, said she is also treating more patients with plantar fasciitis, tendonitis and even ingrown toenails. “There are few fallout effects from the pandemic and the isolation that are happening,” Andersen said, “and broken toes are just one of them.
Keeling, who specializes in foot and ankle surgery at the Centers for Advanced Orthopedics, treated me for my own injury: at the end of October, I had a toe crushed on a chair in my kitchen as I was rushing to pack baskets and coolers with food. no need to go out shopping on a short hike in West Virginia. I was so focused on protecting ourselves from the coronavirus that I paid no attention to protecting my feet from what turned out to be fairly common factors leading to this increase in broken toes.
Why do people break their toes?
Keeling involved Zoom meetings and an online school – he also saw an increase in broken toes in children – for some of the breaks. Regardless of the age of his patients, “they walk downstairs or walk barefoot, and in a rush to get to the next meeting, they bump into furniture.
It was true in my case: I was rushing to my house, which was more crowded than usual due to the packaging and the various pandemic plans I was trying to do, and I was also barefoot, because my family follows the Asian custom. my husband grew up in hawaii leaving shoes outside the house.
Other potential factors: Furniture can be in different places, thanks to all the workstations we have set up for home and school jobs. Or, in an effort to improve our spaces, we could move furniture or carry boxes of decluttering items or online shopping packages, which we then drop on our toes. Plus: “People drop wine bottles on the big toe,” Keeling said. “A bottle of wine or a heavy pot seems to be a big killer for the big toe or the big toe.”
I understand breaking my toe by dropping something heavy on it. When I expressed my surprise that just bumping my toe causes a fracture, Keeling said that the little bones in the toe were no match for “all the energy and momentum that comes with it.” find in your leg and foot pushing your foot into the corner of a wall or into the corner of a hard piece of furniture.
What should you do for a broken toe?
I didn’t see Keeling right after I injured my toe. It didn’t look crooked or out of place so I continued my trip and hike. Years ago, when I was pregnant and suspected that I had a broken pinky finger, I hadn’t x-rayed it. I was worried that an x-ray was dangerous, and my OB / GYN told me there isn’t much that can be done about a broken toe, beyond “buddy-sticking” on the neighboring toe to immobilize it.
However, after the lingering pain forced me to seek treatment this time around, I learned that there were significant reasons for having a toe x-ray. It’s a good idea to know if it’s broken or just stepped on, Pearl said, because that will determine how long you should avoid work or sports that put a lot of pressure on your feet. But, more essentially, if it’s broken, you want to know what kind of break you’re having.
“If it’s very obviously bent, you need an x-ray; you need professional help to put it back in place and in a good position to heal properly, ”Keeling said. “If it’s not bent, you still need an x-ray because you have to identify the nature of the fracture and whether it enters the joint and whether that joint is ruptured. Because if it heals in the wrong position, then you are looking at issues down the road where the joint can continue to get post-traumatic arthritis, and it can become its own problem.
“Your chances of having a long-term complication decrease if your toe heals in the right position, as opposed to healing in the wrong position,” Andersen agreed. “So it’s really to your advantage to understand what’s going on and make sure it’s properly aligned and hitched in the right way.”
If you’re concerned about the cost or safety of x-rays, Andersen wants to allay those worries: “X-rays are inexpensive, easy to do, and safe.” An x-ray of the foot generates “an extremely small amount of radiation,” she added. “So it’s not something you should be worried about.”
My x-ray (which cost $ 113, of which I paid $ 8.30 after insurance) revealed that I had a fracture directly through the bone in my left fourth toe, with everything still aligned. Keeling recommended buddy-taping plus a boot to keep my toe immobilized; later I switched to a stiff sole sandal. A person with a fracture or joint displacement, however, would need the toe to be fixed and might even require surgery and a cast. Pearl is working on a splint specifically for the big toe; the little finger and the big toe are most often broken.
What can you do to protect your feet?
If you can avoid bumping (or dropping something) on your toe, of course, you won’t need to. These experts have recommended several steps we can take to protect not only our toes but also our feet in general.
First, we can wear shoes – especially to carry or move something – or slippers. If, like me, you don’t wear shoes indoors due to cultural tradition, Andersen said, “Get yourself something that is dedicated to your home and that can be easily put on your feet.” She recommends slippers from Vionic, which have arch support, and Oofos recovery sandals. Pearl also mentioned Vionic, as well as Clarks. Nowadays, you can get all kinds of slippers with support, he says. “They go from the really fuzzy style with leopard print to a simple basic black slip-on.”
Wearing shoes or slippers will help prevent other problems arising from our pandemic habits, such as calluses and heel pain when walking barefoot on hard ground, or stress fractures and tendonitis caused by exercise without shoes. (My husband now has to wear shoes in our house due to the strain of years spent barefoot inside and wearing flimsy flip flops outside).
Second, take a closer look at your home and your habits. Take a general tour, look for clutter, cords or furniture in inappropriate places and anything that could pose a hazard. It’s an often recommended practice for older people, Keeling said, but it’s now important for the general population, with people spending so much extra time at home.
If there’s a place where people often get their toes stuck, take a closer look and make adjustments, said Andersen. Stop reckless habits, like leaving the dishwasher door open. Set up a nightlight to see dangerous places if you get up in the middle of the night. Try not to rush. “We have no place to rush right now,” she said.
Third, consider stretching your ankles, toes, and feet. It can improve both circulation, which makes recovery easier, and flexibility, which can help you avoid hitting something and improve your reaction time. “Even though it saves two tenths of a second in reaction time,” said Pearl, “it could be the difference between a minor sprain and a sprain with fracture.” He lists some stretches and exercises for the foot on his website, arlingtonfootandankle.com.
Fourth, be careful if you miss your pedicure appointments and have decided to remove the calluses from your feet on your own. Diabetics shouldn’t treat calluses on their own, Andersen and Pearl warned, and should follow their regular visits to their podiatrist to guard against foot ulcers. For non-diabetics, both podiatrists recommended staying away from razors and sticking to pumice stones or files. You can use a urea cream to soften the calluses and wear socks or even plastic wrap after moisturizing your feet at night to help it do its job.
Andersen said that many patients who used regular pedicures to keep ingrown toenails from growing back were pleasantly surprised to learn that podiatrists can perform surgical treatment to fix the problem permanently. They will say, “’I’ve been dealing with these ingrown toenails for 40 years, and I didn’t know it,” she said. “So that’s a good use of the pandemic.”
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