There are many different structures in the ball of the foot – bone, ligaments, joints, muscle, tendon, nerve, blood vessels, bursa, skin etc. If you have pain in the ball of your foot, then it could be because something is wrong with one of those structures or tissues. That means there is potentially, literally, 100’s of things that could be causing that pain in the ball of the foot.
For example, it could be because of any one or more of the following:
- A Morton’s neuroma.
- Plantar callus
- Sesamoiditis
- Stress fractures
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- ‘Overload’ syndrome
- Fat pad atrophy
- Freibergs disease
- Plantar plate tear
- Osteoarthritis
- Metatarsalgia
- etc
Each of those causes of pain in the ball of the foot is going to need a different treatment. If you do have pain in the ball of the foot it might pay to get the diagnosis right before proceeding with any form of treatment.
