A New Injury

I appear to have an injury that I've never had before. There's a swelling at the base of my index toe (or between if and the big toe). By base I mean where the ball of the foot it (the first joint). My Dr can't feel it but I can but only when I walk on it. It's like there's a non painful pebble like pressure in there.

Since it's not at all clear what it is I did some internet checking. The closest I can find is something called Turf Toe (http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/front/foot/turftoe.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turf_toe) and it's when the toes are hyperextended up and the ligament at the base of the toe is damaged. This happens particularly on hard surfaces where the person is wearing soft soled shoes (who me?).

For me that implicates both hiking long distance on hard surfaces, and spinning class. In both cases my shoes are softer than what is generally recommended to give my hip a break. Well that appears to be good for my hip but not so good for my feet which have to bear the brundt.

I was hoping that it was just from hiking and that it would go away but that hasn't occurred so I must suspect spinning class with its jumping up and back down in the pedals (great workout but apparently tough on the footsies.) So I need to lay off of spin class (bummer - I love it) for 4 weeks or so and then when I go back I should go back with classic hard soled cycling shoes instead of the mountain bike ones that I love so much.

Oh and keep taking my NSAID Voltaren.

There is a suggestioon that you should get an X-Ray, but if it was fractured it would hurt a LOT more and that's not the case as it really doesn't hurt at all.

I'll have to figure out what Bladium class to do in the mean time. I'm thinking Body Pump and maybe Body Flow. Body Pump is group weight work out which is nice but I have to be careful and work on my form as othereise I'll get hurt

I already have Dr. Grant telling me to buy new hiking shoes. I can come up with about $400-500 worth of shoes that I could use. Cycling shoes, Running Shoes, Hiking Boots, General workout shoes, and on and on. Yeesh.