Will sesamoiditis go away or is this forever?

I’m a professional ballroom dancer—do it for a living. Long story short, 2 days ago came up with severe toe and ball-of-foot pain and inability to go through ball and push off toe. One of my students, who is an orthopedic surgeon, after touching and examining my foot, said it sounds like sesamoiditis. Just got back from my osteopath and my pain went from 6/7 to 1/2. She worked on the muscles on my outer and inner calves as well as arch and the flexing of my foot, which was tight. By the end of the hour, she could touch my pad w/out me flinching; considerably less pain. I go back in 2 days. I’m doing most of the other remedies mentioned previously. But to me the key is a knowledgeable osteopath, who works with soft tissue. For me the pain is actually coming from my over tight calf muscles...everything is connected.
I’ll post my progress.

I posted a couple of days ago—pro ballroom dancer w/ very recent sesamoiditis. Doing most of the treatments aforementioned but, most importantly, being treated by an osteopath and with homeopathic ruta. My injury actually comes from the calf so she is releasing the muscles on the outer and inner calf and working the arch of my foot. I’ve had 2 treatments in 3 days. After yesterday’s treatment, I am 24 hours pain free(was taking ibuprofen every 4 hours for intense pain and inflammation). Still staying off of my foot. Still alternating between ice and heat, ending with ice but including my calf in the treatment, not just my foot. Doing exercises of flexing my foot/ankle and slowly curling my big toe. I see my osteopath again in 2 days. I’ll post my progress.

I posted a couple of days ago—pro ballroom dancer w/ very recent sesamoiditis. Doing most of the treatments aforementioned but, most importantly, being treated by an osteopath and with homeopathic ruta. My injury actually comes from the calf so she is releasing the muscles on the outer and inner calf and working the arch of my foot. I’ve had 2 treatments in 3 days. After yesterday’s treatment, I am 24 hours pain free(was taking ibuprofen every 4 hours for intense pain and inflammation). Still staying off of my foot. Still alternating between ice and heat, ending with ice but including my calf in the treatment, not just my foot. Doing exercises of flexing my foot/ankle and slowly curling my big toe. I see my osteopath again in 2 days. I’ll post my progress.

I speak from experience.

Here is a list of things that DON'T work.
1. Arch support in your shoes. Think about it... The higher the arch support the more pressure you're putting on your ball of the foot and your heel. This will make your condition worse.
2. Expensive gym shoes.
3. Pads for the ball of the foot.
4. Podiatrist who keeps calling you into his office for follow-up appointments without any improvement. I felt like a guinea pig.

Here's what some what has worked for me. I wear Birkenstock cork sole shoes. I work 8 hours a day at work on my feet and feel no pain. As soon as I go home I put gym shoes on and I can feel a dull pain. I have been dealing with sesamoiditis on my right foot for about three years now. Still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. I just have to find a good podiatrist. There is some kind of imbalance muscular system and figure out how to treat it.

How is your daughter now? My daughter just turned 11. She has been in a cast twice for sesamoiditis. She finished the summer in one for 2 weeks. Then she was back in one for 4 weeks in December. Now it's hurting again. She sprained her ankle and was on crutches for over a month in February. Now she is complaining again. The exact same pain. I scheduled an appointment for Tuesday, but today she was crying in pain. Ice does not help. I got her some pads for her feet. She says they help a little. Just wondering what other options we might have. She's a dancer and cheerleader. She is upset she might not be able to do either activity this year.

Wanted to share my experience - I injured my big tie near the end of 2018 from running and am nearly fully healed ~10 months later. As everyone here knows, this is an injury that can really wreak havoc on all parts of your life! There were weeks where I literally could not walk more than a couple feet or even drive due to pain when pushing the pedals. I wanted to share what worked for me in case it can help anyone else.

1) Don't try to continue being active - just accept that giving your foot a few months to heal will be the best outcome. This is probably what prolonged the problem the worst for me. After the initial injury, I started to feel better a couple weeks later and went rock climbing, which inflamed my foot worse than before. This happened over and over (wait a few weeks then try being active, only to reinjure it).
2) Regain range of motion and stretch. You don't want the joint to calcify and lose range of motion.
3) Ice/heat therapy. I started off with an ice pack, which helped. I ended up using an ice bucket (5-10 seconds in, 30 seconds out and repeat) and then very hot water thereafter. Helped a lot with pain
4) Dancers pads and rocker sole shoes. Pads helped cushion the area and rocker sole shoes (got both MTB and exersteps) take pressure off the joint. I took a 2 week trip to China a few months ago with lots of walking and the rocker sole shoes helped me get through it.
5) Other potentially helpful things - I taped in the beginning and used a soft brace. I tried compression socks. Also tried CBD, which might have helped but maybe more just for feeling awful about the situation.

Hope this is useful to anyone and good luck on a smooth recovery!

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I want to post my experience and provide the steps I took that have got me back on my feet, after a long period of no progress, to a recovery after 3 months. I hope it helps someone like me that came to this forum (through surely 50+ hours of research) and found it to be the biggest collection of people working through the mental and physical setbacks of sesamoiditis. I'm not in the medical field, but kept a copious log of my journey and in short, here were the things I tried (out of many others) that actually helped me heal: 1. Buy rigid sole, wide toe box shoes 2. Padded insole with adhesive pad to offload 3. CAM boot over soft cas 4. Physical therapy (with stretching & strengthening, ultrasound, e-stim, ionto patch) Details below.

After a busy week on my feet in June, I woke one morning and noticed I couldn't walk well on the ball of my right foot. It wasn't fully limiting and could get by using the outside of my foot, but still scheduled a podiatrist appointment. Glad that I did. I was wearing old shoes with worn insoles and being barefoot, so the first step was new shoes with a rigid sole and wide toe box. I went with the Altra Paradigm 4 which were all black and passable for work shoes. We added a pad to the bottom of some Powersoles with a 'J' shape around the sesamoids. Inflammation stayed the same for 2 weeks, so we moved to full offloading: soft cast from base of toes up to lower ankle, made of foam wrapped in unna boot (changed every week for 6 weeks. Then over that, we used the Ossur Rebound full walking boot. This was surprisingly comfortable, though unsure if it was effective because swelling didn't decrease.

I was SO frustrated at this point, and it was taking a mental toll that I may not ever make progress. Then I started physical therapy, about 75 mins 2x/week. The sessions would be 6 mins on a bike with a wedge under the foot, trampoline, inchworms, and Theraband to get stretched and strengthen my legs. Then we'd do ultrasound and biofreeze for 10 mins, and electrical stimulation for 15. Then once per week we would do the iontophoresis. This is a patch on the foot with a battery pack to inject (for me, it was dextamethasone) into the foot. It is not the same as the painful cortizone shots I've heard of. This was, to me, by far the most effective part of things for me. After about 3 weeks, 6 total sessions, the swelling and pain dropped SIGNIFICANTLY. I was afraid it was due to the ionto patch, but after its effective window, nothing came back. I was amazed and frankly still am, so this is why I want to give something definitive when a treatment method did work. It's been a month now since I had pain, and I've worked back into 3-mile hikes and long days on my feet without more inflammation. However, I listen to my body and watch every step...if I feel a twinge I shut it down. There's still small swelling, and I still wear shoes or at least sandals 98% of the time to ensure this frustrating injury stays in check. Everyone's body is different. It'll heal your own ways and in it's own time, but at least a definitive program that worked for someone could be a start for you. Best of luck!

Hi all,
For those of you who haven't seen Dr Ray McClanahan's absolutely superb explanation of sesamoiditis, I cannot recommend enough that you go and do so. It seems almost criminal to me that no one else is talking about sesamoid grooves.

I had severe sesamoid pain for months that only seemed to get worse with rest. Within minutes of the lateral big toe stretches though, I had substantial relief. And combined with silicone toe spacers, toe socks, and wide toe-box shoes, within 48 hours my sesamoid pain was completely gone. That was well over a month ago and I haven't looked back since.

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I went to top podiatrist in LA who serves the basketball professionals. He gave me hanging toe metatarsal foam pads and prescribed physical therapy with SHOCKWAVE.
50% better after 1st TREATMENT!!! better and better and better ASK FIOR SHOCKWAVE TREATMENTS!