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Chipped Bone In Foot: Causes & Best Treatment 2019

Chipped Bone In Foot: Find out if you have a chipped bone in your foot? Or if it is something else entirely. The get rid of it!

 

Chipped Bone In Foot Symptoms:

It is usually pretty obvious when it is a bone through your skin.

  • It feels hard.
  • You can feel it continue along the bone.
  • It is usually immobile and stuck to the bone surface.
  • It can cause skin pain against your shoe.
  • It can cause nerve pain: numbness, burning & tingling.

 

Chipped bone in the foot or shin treatment
This is a chipped bone of the proximal phalanx of the 2nd toe. A chipped toe bone can have a really straightforward healing process with buddy tapping and wearing good shoes. Make sure you don’t aggravate it further!

 

Causes Of A Chipped Bone In Foot:

Usually it is not even a chipped bone that is causing your worry.

  • It is a bone fragment known as an osteophyte.
  • Osteophytes occur usually due to arthritis or trauma to a joint.
  • It is known as exuberant (extra) bone formation in an area.
  • If an abnormal stress is placed on a joint, it can develop extra bone formation.
  • This is most common in weight bearing joints.

 

 

Chipped Bone In Foot Treatment:

The most common sites of this extra bone formation known as an osteophyte is:

 

1)The Big Toe Joint:

big toe hallux fracture comminuted
This is a badly broken bone in the big toe joint! This is a crushed fracture, not just a chipped bone.
  • This is usually in relation to a condition known as hallux rigidus.
  • So much extra bone can form that it decreases or even complete stops big toe joint motion.
  • This leads to severe pain.
  • It is known as degenerative joint disease.
  • You can feel all the extra rough bone on top of your big toe joint!

 

bone spur on top of the foot hallux rigidus bone spur with arthritis surgery treatment, hallux rigidus
This is an example of a patient who has really bad arthritis and heel spurs to the back of the heel bone. They also have a gigantic spur on top of the foot, which is at the big toe joint. In this case. This is a very difficult foot to deal with, and this patient could not even fit into a shoe. This did require surgery.

2)The Top Of The Foot:

This is known as a 1st metatarsal cuneiform joint exostosis.

 

Bone spur on top of the middle of the foot lisfranc joint
This is a big bump on the top of the middle of the foot. This is known as lisfranc joint arthritis. Look at good orthotics and shoes to relieve the compression. We then recommend skipping the laces in that part of the shoe to take pressure off the lump!

 

  • This is a midfoot joint spur.
  • This can compress the nerve the runs across the top of your foot.
  • It can cause swelling & redness in the skin.
  • It can cause numbness, burning and tingling in the nerve.

 

There is a lot of anatomy at the top of the foot. The most common place for a chipped bone to occur is at the Lisfranc joint which is the middle of the foot. This can cause rubbing the setup of your shoe.
We find the best way to relieve this pain is to skip the shoelace holes immediately over this bone spur.

 

3)The Ankle Joint:

Ankle joint anatomy tibia and fibula lateral view
This is a lateral view of the tibia and fibula. It is important to check from both the AP and lateral views. On X-ray it can be difficult to see finer fractures, especially if there is no displacement. There is a chip at the back of the ankle joint here.

This is known as an anterior ankle spur.

  • This can decrease the range of motion of your ankle dramatically.
  • It can lead to ankle arthritis.

 

Avulsion fracture of the fibula with broken ankle
This is a minor fracture of the fibula. The patient avulsed the ligament from the tip of the fibula. Ligaments to worry about here are the ATFL, PTFL and CFL.

 

4)The Heel:

Back of the heel spur and bottom of the heel spur
This patient had both Achilles tendinitis and plantar fasciitis at the same time, for many years. You can see that there is the beginnings of an Achilles tendon heel spur in the plantar fascia heel spur at the bottom of the foot.

This is known as a heel spur.

 

  • This is perhaps the most famous bone spur or osteophyte.
  • This actually an enthesophyte, because it is caused by the pull of a muscle.
  • This can happen at the bottom or the back of the heel.
  • At the bottom it is related to plantar fascia pain (plantar fasciitis).
  • At the back it is related to achilles tendonitis & achilles pain.

 

Calcaneus Bone Spur Bottom of the heel spur
This is a bone spur at the bottom of the heel. This is caused by a condition called plantar fasciitis.
Achilles tendon bone spur is at the back of the heel were the Achilles tendon inserts.