Can you prevent bunions

Wearing high heels for years can lead to a variety of foot issues, including bunions. Wear high heels for special events, but take them off when sitting, and wear comfortable shoes for the rest of the day. Weak ligaments in your feet can increase your risk of developing bunions. Exercising your feet can strengthen muscles and tendons, which can help prevent bunions from developing and minimize symptoms of existing bunions. Exercises, such as toe flexing, stretching your big toe, and picking up small objects with your toes, can have many benefits.

Talk to Dr. Moran about foot exercises that might work well for you. If a bunion starts to develop, take extra care to keep your big toe joint from getting irritated. Bunions grow when they get irritated and swollen. But the right shoes can help relieve foot pain so you can live your life. The right shoes can also help alleviate pressure on your toe joint. But keep reading for more ways to help your feet. Nothing puts pressure on your toes, and particularly your big toe joint, like high heels.

If you can give up heels in favor of supportive flats, do it. Or look at adding wedges or block heels to your wardrobe since they are best at distributing weight. Our feet get a lot of use, so they deserve an equal amount of rest and relaxation. Pain, redness, and soreness are some of the most common symptoms of bunions.

The pain can be mild or severe, and it may come and go. It might also get progressively worse if the bunions are left untreated.

There are also a number of possible complications, including:. This painful condition develops when the small fluid-filled pads that cushion the bones near the joints become inflamed.

The pressure of the big toe against the next toe can cause an abnormal bend in the middle joint of the second toe, leading to pain, pressure, and calluses where the joint rubs against the top of your shoe. This condition affects the ball of your foot, resulting in pain and swelling.

Conservative bunion treatments include rest; icing; padding, taping, or splinting the toe; wearing shoes with roomier toe space so as not to press on the joint; foot supports orthotics ; over-the-counter medications; and steroid injections into the bursae around the joint. While conservative treatments offer relief, bunions are a progressive deformity, and the only way to truly correct them is with surgery.

It is sometimes unclear why bunions develop. It can be related the shape of your foot or to genetics. However, most people develop bunions as a result of wearing tightly fitting shoes. Many people get bunions because they wear shoes that are too tight. Shoes that have a narrow, pointed tip squeeze the toes together and force them to turn toward each other. High-heeled shoes add even more stress to the toes by shifting weight off of the heel and onto the front of the foot.

Over time, this unnatural foot position pushes the big toe joint inward and leads to a bunion. Bunions predominantly occur in women, most likely because they tend to wear ill-fitting or high-heeled shoes more frequently.