Patients with bunions either ask me why they have bunions or tell me why they THINK they have bunions. Here’s the real deal: bunions are hereditary. Most likely they come from one or both of your parents, but they may have skipped a generation and come from your grandparents. Specifically, it’s all about how your skeleton was built and engineered by them.
People whose skeleton isn’t biomechanically stable—mostly, people whose feet flatten out more than they should—have structural instability which causes the bones in the ball of your foot to spread out. This is why the ball of the feet of people with bunions can be so wide and difficult to fit into shoes. The joint at the base of the big toe buckles sideways and that’s the bunion!
(On a side note, the smaller toes may buckle upwards for the same reason, these are known as hammertoes which can cause painful joints or corns.)
Here’s the surprising fact: there’s a lot of information out there that tight or pointed-toe shoes cause bunions. FALSE! Shoes make the best (or worst) of a given situation. Those kinds of shoes can make bunions or hammertoes more painful. But think about this: how can a shoe which is too tight allow the ball of the foot to spread out? Answer: It CAN’T!
Now that you know the real facts, then it’s a matter of how you deal with bunions. Depending on how much pain you have and what type of pain you have (yes, there are different types of bunion pain) bunions can be treated via surgery and/or orthotics. Orthotics deal with WHY you have bunions, surgery deals with the painful deformity itself.
The takeaway point from this message is that once we know WHY you have bunions, we’re better able to deal with them the right way and the best way.
If you or somebody you know has bunions, come on in and we’ll explain thing in more depth. For more information or an appointment, contact us at 732-382-3470 or visit our website at www.clarkpodiatry.com.
At Clark Podiatry Center, we want to keep you walking!
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