Bunions - a painful deformity of the great
toe, on one foot or both. They tend to grow, finding
shoes that fit is getting more tricky, and they cause
pain. Ouchy.
If you have a bunion, you might have been told it's
genetic, if your parents had one too. But is that really
the case?
I'm going to challenge this, as we absorb movement
skills from family, in the same way as we learn
language and other essential life skills, learning by
imitation. Young children have an incredible capacity to
learn. The way to move one's body is just another
important skill.
Bunion is a response of your body to the way we move.
We should be pushing off the big toe with lots of lovely
movement under the big toe joint, as we walk and as
we leave one foot behind us.
However, if that foot is not pronating (going into the
arch) very well, we roll the leg inwards often and push
into the big toe joint with more force than intended
twisting it. The big toe joint experiences forces it was
not designed for.
The response is a deformity of the big toe joint, the
body lays down extra tissues around the joint to protect
it and the whole joint area grows outwards as the big
toe itself bends and curves inwards into its neighbour.
Surgery can be indicated to shave off the extra bone
that had grown. But here's the catch. Bunions very
often come back a few years down the line after the
very painful surgery!
Why? Because the underlying conditions that created it
are still there. Your foot continues to do the same thing
with walking as it used to, pre-surgery.
So we need to address this. Where do we start?
Always - with your core. Your intra-abdominal pressure,
the pelvis and lower back stability. Get these sorted,
combine that with decompression of the big toe joint,
and we can slow down, stop the process or maybe
even reverse it to some degree, if you put in lots of
effort.
To learn more, and put this into practice, why not book
in for a 1-1 assessment of your walking patterns and
your feet, or join one of my online classes where we
will talk more about walking, feet, and how these tie in
with core.
Let's address these bunions before they cause you increased discomfort and
pain.
To your healthy feet,
Kaye