4 Signs of a Stress Fracture in Your Foot or Ankle, a Common Sports Injury

Being active is important to you because it supports both your physical and mental health. This also means that you don’t love being sidelined by injury, yet juggling sports injuries is often a part of the picture when you’re active.

One of the more common sports injuries is stress fracture in your feet or ankles, which accounts for up to 20% of athlete injuries.

These musculoskeletal injuries can be challenging to identify because they’re not acute breaks, so sports medicine specialist Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román is using this blog post to take a closer look at stress fractures in the feet and ankles. Our team at No Mercy Sports Medicine has extensive experience with this type of injury, and here’s what we want you to know.

The road to a stress fracture

Did you know that your feet and ankles contain about one-quarter (52!) of the total bones in your body? Or that, by the time the average person reaches age 50, their feet have logged an impressive 75,000 miles? And that number is probably low if you’re an athlete.

Our point is that there’s plenty of opportunity for fractures to occur in your feet and ankles. In most cases, stress fractures develop in your heel bone or in one of the long metatarsal bones in your foot. They can also develop in your:

• Fibula where it meets your ankle
• Talus bone in your ankle
• Sesamoids in your big toe
• Navicular on the top of your midfoot

No matter where they develop, stress fractures are overuse injuries in which the rate of bone remodeling can’t keep up with the stresses you're placing on the weakened bone, so a crack develops.

What causes stress fractures?

A wide range of conditions can lead to stress fractures in your feet and ankles, such as:

• An increase in your activity level, such as adding mileage to your run
• A new activity
• Uneven surfaces
• Natural bone loss as you age
• Ill-fitting shoes that don’t properly support your feet
• Poor foot anatomy

Ultimately, a stress fracture usually comes from pushing too hard and not giving your bones the time they need to remodel and rebuild.

Signs of a stress fracture

Because this is a progressive overuse injury, symptoms often start out mild but soon become more severe if you ignore the issue. Stress fracture symptoms include:

1. Pain

The most obvious sign of a stress fracture is pain. In the beginning, the pain usually only makes itself known when you’re active. Over time, however, pain can start to plague you outside of being active and be present when you’re simply sitting on the couch.

2. Tenderness

Another key sign of a stress fracture is tenderness in your foot or ankle. If you’re experiencing pain, try gently prodding your foot or ankle to determine if there are sensitive areas.

3. Swelling

Stress fractures can lead to swelling, but not always. If there’s swelling that’s accompanied by pain and tenderness, these signs point to a likely stress fracture. Even if you don’t see any swelling, that doesn’t rule out stress fractures because many are located in areas where swelling doesn’t occur or isn’t obvious.

4. Bruising

With severe stress fractures, you might see visible bruising in your skin.

Getting on the road to healthier feet and ankles

Because stress fractures can be difficult to identify, we urge you to make an appointment with Dr. Irizarry-Román if you’re experiencing any of the symptoms we’ve outlined. Our practice is equipped with cutting-edge musculoskeletal ultrasound technology that can determine whether there’s damage in your bones.

If we confirm a stress fracture, you’re in excellent hands as we offer a wide range of treatments that range from regenerative orthobiologics in the form of stem cell therapy and platelet-rich plasma treatments as well as more traditional treatments like splinting and rest.

When you suspect that you have a stress fracture, it’s important to see us before it gets worse. To get that ball rolling, contact No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, by calling 305-614-6757. You can also send a message online to request an appointment.