Hi Docs,
I've been wearing minimalist shoes for running for nearly two years. About a year ago I started to get a numb 2nd toe on my right foot when running. The numbness starts to occur at about the 6-8km distance and steadily gets more uncomfortable until about 10-12km then I don't really notice it too much. The area of numbness is on the left side of the tow next to the big toe near the end - pretty much from the last knuckle up. I've found splaying my toes as I'm running gives temporary relief after a sharp bit of pain. I also found that scrunching my toes about 10 - 15 times every km or so tends to alleviate the problem a little, or more delays the onset.
The other thing if I've found the problem is worse when I'm wearing my vibram fivefingers than when I'm wearing my xero shoes. I still get it in the Xeros but because I can move my toes around more it seems to help. I'm at a bit of a loss about this as I have normally resolved all of the other injury problems but this one just seems to keep hanging around. I've done the prodding and squeezing to check for Morton's neuroma and there is nothing there between the metatarsal heads. My second toe is about 1mm longer than my big toe and the metatarsal head of the second toe sits just ahead of the big toe metatarsal head so I guess there might be some thing in that. The left foot has no problem though and it's the same shape as the right one.
Any ideas? I'd certainly appreciate any advice.
I've been wearing minimalist shoes for running for nearly two years. About a year ago I started to get a numb 2nd toe on my right foot when running. The numbness starts to occur at about the 6-8km distance and steadily gets more uncomfortable until about 10-12km then I don't really notice it too much. The area of numbness is on the left side of the tow next to the big toe near the end - pretty much from the last knuckle up. I've found splaying my toes as I'm running gives temporary relief after a sharp bit of pain. I also found that scrunching my toes about 10 - 15 times every km or so tends to alleviate the problem a little, or more delays the onset.
The other thing if I've found the problem is worse when I'm wearing my vibram fivefingers than when I'm wearing my xero shoes. I still get it in the Xeros but because I can move my toes around more it seems to help. I'm at a bit of a loss about this as I have normally resolved all of the other injury problems but this one just seems to keep hanging around. I've done the prodding and squeezing to check for Morton's neuroma and there is nothing there between the metatarsal heads. My second toe is about 1mm longer than my big toe and the metatarsal head of the second toe sits just ahead of the big toe metatarsal head so I guess there might be some thing in that. The left foot has no problem though and it's the same shape as the right one.
Any ideas? I'd certainly appreciate any advice.