Fighting the Bunion! Finding methods to correct a bunion without surgery.

Recently it was my youngest's 18th and my eldest wanted to introduce her to the world of clubbing and dancing. I was joining them as my youngest's emotional crutch and dusting off layers on shoes I hadn't worn for years. I slipped on a heeled sandal and looked down in disgust at my bunion hanging out the side, taunting me. It had obviously been taking this time to grow some more.

I've had a bunion on my left foot for probably 15 years now. It's not something I've always had and I just noticed it's appearance one day, a few days before my mum noticed it and decided to also point out out to me. It never bothered me, until just recently when I began rock climbing again. So apart from trying to push my toe back out occasionally, I've never done anything about it. There was mostly never much advice on what could be done about it anyway and if it wasn't causing you any problems, the general advice was to do nothing.

With the climbing starting to cause aching through the bunion side of my foot, I decided to look into it again to see if there really was nothing to be done other than surgery. My first port of call was to look into bunion braces/correctors and see whether they actually work. Mostly, the only sites claiming they work were the ones selling them, but I did come across an article by a podiatrist that said certain ones can help a little. I didn't have the spare income to buy at the time, but when I tried to find the article again, not surprisingly, I couldn't. So I started searching from scratch, this time focusing on articles coming from podiatrists.

I came across an article from a podiatrist practice in New South Wales, Australia, that said that while the braces don't work, there are exercises they can teach you to which would. Obviously, they didn't elaborate one what they were, because they want you to attend their practice, but they are in another state to me, so that's not happening. It did give me something to go on, though, so I put the word bunion in the YouTube search box. Some videos of stretches and exercises started coming up, but my memory isn't great, so I decided to compile my most useful findings for future reference.

First up is a good, basic explanatory video, which explains bunions and their causes, starting with how to tell if it's treatable with exercises or caused by arthritis and not treatable this way. He then goes on to indicate how the muscles and tendons run through the foot, connecting to the ankle, the knee and the leg. This then goes on to explain why problems with your ankle and legs can cause flat feet, or fallen arches which in turn push the big toe out of position to create the bunion.

The main focus for the podiatrist this video is on orthotics and shoe support, which is fine if you can afford to invest in that sort of thing. However, it's also not something I want to rely on if I can work to improve the musculature in my legs and feet to support my joints better. He then goes on to demonstrate steps to massaging and stretching out your hips, hamstrings, calves and feet. I haven't gotten around to doing a full massage and stretch session, yet, but I was surprised at the tightness of my calf muscles when I had a quick session on the roller.

A shorter video from Daniel Fitzpatrick of Alternative Foot Solutions, gives you some for exercises to help strengthen the muscles to improve foot posture, which will help to keep your toes in alignment.

Now here were two simple exercises I could remember, so I've started doing them each day. They don't seem like much, initially, but after about 8 of the toe crunches I started to feel the ache in my left foot and my balance wasn't as good as I'd thought when I did the heel raises. He concludes with saying that these exercises as a stand alone will only strengthen the muscles around the bunion and “aren't loosening the connective tissues that will allow the joints to straighten long term.“ So there was another piece to this puzzle that I needed to find.

I like simple exercises like this that you can incorporate into your life easily and develop into a habit. I'm going to find it harder to set aside time for the massage and stretches shown in the first video.

My next find was this short video from Northwest Foot and Ankle. They also start with mentioning footwear, but quickly go on to show stretches and massages to help bring the toe back into alignment.

I like that the previous two videos actually show someone with a bunion demonstrating these exercises, not hiding reality like product advertising does. I know that this is not going to be a sudden improvement and I really need to keep up with these habits long term to prevent recurrence, even if they work.

I was drawn to this next video because it said “yoga” for bunions. No I'm not a Yogi, but it is something I'd like to find time to do more than dabble with, one day.

I saw some of these exercises done in another video, but I like the explanation that goes with this one much more and his instruction style. He mentions a few other toe issues that can develop as well.

The key points that kept cropping up in my research were that you are generally, genetically predisposed to this and bad lower body posture and ill fitting shoes are what will trigger it. Some people are lucky enough that even wearing high heels all the time won't cause them an issue. If you tend towards being flat footed, then you are likely to develop a bunion at some point of you don't correct this. I may have delayed the onset of mine without intending to, when I got myself some arch supports in my teens, because my friend at school was telling me about them and showing me hers. Now that's good peer pressure! I wore them for years and tried to be aware of not allowing my arches to collapse for years after. I must have let the ball drop at some point, though.

I have lots of things to be getting on with now and a photo reference to start my journey. Wish me luck.