I was out running this morning in the dark and the wet, around the local greenspace. I managed to turn my ankle and dumped my weight on the outside of my left foot. I think I may have managed to press the base of my fifth metatarsal into a tree root or something - not sure. Hurt quite a lot; carried on running home and aside from a couple of “ouch” moments, it was ok. It generally felt “tight” as if a piece of strapping had been place across my foot and was constricting it. And tender.
Get home and I can feel a swelling at the base of the fifth metatarsal on the left side that’s not there on the right. I can walk on it reasonably well, but it is tender to bear weight (now at about 2h post incident). I doubt I’d enjoy running or agile footwork right now. A bit of research reveals that it is possible to have pretty tiny fractures in that bone near its base.
Anyone have any useful insight into an “at home” test I can try to determine whether it’s more likely fractured or more likely just bruised?
I broke my 5th met several years ago the same way – turned my ankle. It was what’s called a Jone’s fracture, and there was NO WAY I could continue walking, let alone running. Still, get it x-rayed.
Had the x ray. Fracture line - avulsion, rather than Jones. No separation of the bone. Crutches, and likely to end up in a boot for the next few weeks.
Dude, very sorry to hear this. Cancel your plans for the next 12-16 weeks - you’ll be in a boot for most of that time. rroof and sentania can tell you all about surgery if you want to go that route. I begged my ortho to do surgery and he refused because mine was minimally displaced. I took the boot off at exactly 12 weeks and started a really awesome and exciting WALKING program! 4-5 weeks later I started biking normal and started to run on a careful progression. Kicking while swimming with this injury is a big no-no as it pulls on the peroneus breavis tendon and can disrupt healing. The only good news in this is that it will heal and when it does heal it will be rock solid - unlike a soft-tissue injury where you spend months and months getting it rehabbed.
Saw the consultant last night. For context, I chose a sports doc specialising in feet and ankles. This guy is probably top 3 in London. I made it pretty clear that I wanted to know what I could do rather than what I couldn’t, and that I wanted this fixed ASAP.
Off the back of that, he gave me an air boot to supplement the crutches, and said to keep weight off it for three weeks. At that point the bones will have become “sticky”. This big risk is displacing the part of the bone on one side of the fracture. That would mean a screw and 6w non weight bearing (he said I didn’t have a Dancer’s fracture, which is the best one to have - “you’d be dancing in 4 weeks” - but I had the next best after that).
Although I can cycle pain free in roadie shoes, he’s not keen on me doing that, partly due to the twist on disengagement. By chance, the right foot is the one I leave clipped in, so that’s not an issue. We came to a deal there - his notes say 3 weeks off the bike but the verbal is 2. I’ll see how it feels at 2. The biggest issue at the mo is actually getting a bike shoe on. I may try a turbo session before that, given that that’s a much more controlled environment and that I can walk (!) away at any time.
His pretty confident prognosis was running in early Jan. Which, if it pans out, would be one giant bullet dodged.
Interestingly he considered that heavy strapping was largely psychological in benefit, and he was fairly dismissive about using an Exogen (“if you can get one from eBay you won’t have lost very much”). And the only dietary change worth making was to up my calcium.
Greg, I had a similar fracture and what helped me “step down” from the walking air-cast was (1) at week three converting to mountaineering boots - any super stiff boot that will accept cramp-ons will do; and (2) at about week 6 stepping down to some good stiff hiking shoes (approach shoes like the La Sportiva Boulder X worked great). This way I was able to walk normal much sooner than prescribed. I was told 8-12 weeks in the air-cast and I think I used it for about 3.
I purchased the Exogen off ebay and cannot really say for certain if it helped. All I can say is on week 9 I was running 14 miles (for the week) and by week 12 I was running 32 miles. I paid around $350 for a unit with 8 uses.
Yesterday started at 48h post injury. It was shit. My foot felt sore and bruised all day long. Leaving it immobile and elevated was ok - not great but ok. Whacking an ice pack on it got it above ok. Moving around was no fun. Even strapped, with the air boot on, I couldn’t walk on it. All my movement yesterday was on crutches keeping minimal (I’d say 10% of normal) weight on it at most.
Today, 72h post. Woke up and it still felt v sore. Getting out of bed had me straight on crutches with zero weight on it to get to the bathroom. I strapped it, got the airboot on nice and tight and even then kept it off the ground.
Come lunch time I could feel a consistent tingling in it around the area of the fracture. Sat down to watch Ireland vs the All Blacks - one of the most amazing games of rugby I’ve ever seen - and it tingled away while I stayed very still wrapped up in the game. I had to get out of the house a couple of times in the pm doing car duties (thank fuck it’s my left foot) and began to notice that I was less reluctant to share some weight on it with the crutches.
It was my job to make dinner, so the crutches were hung up and I did a series of one legged swivels around the kitchen. But it was impossible not to notice that it was becoming easier to bear weight on. In fact, by the time I went to bed, I was walking without crutches just on the airboat, fairly normally. Sufficiently normally that I’ve been able to test a small bit of balance on the bad foot, and find out that the airboot is canted massively to put weight onto the inside edge of the foot - makes sense.
After taking the boot off and removing my strapping, I did a quick touch test. The sensitivity is down hugely. There is a feel of mild bruising around the 5th MT base, but not all down the outside of the foot as there was on Fri eve when I saw the consultant.
All that said, I can certainly feel alarm bells if I try to push against the canting of the airboot and weight the outside of my foot. Not a good idea.
It’s possible that this will be a one step forward two steps back rehab - we’ll see; but right now, it feels as if I’ve taken a pretty big step (haha) forward.
I think this is pretty normal for any fracture. The first week should be completely immobilized. If you really want to put some pressure on the foot you could go to the pool and do some “pool walking” while holding a pull buoy or kick board - basically to take as much weight off as possible.
I had a surprise birthday trip to disney world planned (for my 5-year old daughter) four days after fracturing my fifth metatarsal so guess who was limping around Orlando all gimpy…this guy. I don’t recommend it (but thank god for the knee scooter).
Exercises you can probably do right now: Swimming with pull buoy (absolutely zero kicking); concept 2 rower with hiking boots (surprising how non-weight bearing this exercise is). Thats about it.
All I did the first week after my fracture was kickboxing in a chair. I think I used a resistance band for upper body work as well. But, I couldn’t even keep my foot down for long without pain and had to elevated it often. I can’t imagine walking around Disney! The rower is a fantastic idea. My doctor told me I could start cycling 10 days after the fracture, but there’s no way I could do that. I tried 7 weeks later, and still couldn’t do it.