Sesamoid Injury: Email Advice

Hi Dr Blake. 

I am from China. I am happy found your youtube video about how to treat the sesamoid fracture. I have this on-going pain on the joint of the hallux on my right foot.

https://youtu.be/8cwW2Bmcc0E

The story is, I hit my toe on a rock in 2015 Oct when jogging. It was extremely painful for 10 minutes and then the pain reduced a lot, I didn't do any treatment, and I kept dancing on high heels. 

A while later, I found the pain didn't go away, nor increase. I changed into flat shoes and reduce dancing, and keep massaging. 

However, it seems improved slowly yet, 2 months ago, the joint got swollen and burn, for 2 days, then it reduced again, and 2 weeks later, it happened again.

I took an X-ray,  the result says my bones are complete and fine.  Later on, I took CT (not sure if it is MRI) is says my sesamoid is the problem, the doctor says it is broken/inflamed, he said I need an operation to take that out. That sounds scary and the pain is on-going but not that huge, however, the operation is the only option the doctor gave me. 

I just wanna ask if you have any suggestion how can I treat the problem without going through an operation. 

You may take a look at the attached file for reference.

By the way, i

Very appreciate your time reading all this, I hope I can hear back from you soon. 

Best wishes. 

Dr Blake's comment: Thank you for sending the email and the images. The images look like the tibial sesamoid was injured, but it is healing fine. These bones bear a lot of weight and need protection. See if you can make a dancer's pad to off weight, and daily ice for 5 minutes twice a day. The dancer's pad we make is out of 1/8th adhesive felt so it can stick to shoes or inserts putting weight around the sore area. You need to create the 0-2 pain level, which is increased with just the above 2 treatments. Let me know how you are doing after one month of that. 

                                                                                      Dancer's Padding