A painful bump on the base of your big toe is what we call a turnip, a.k.a. bunion. Due to this toe issue, the way the toe bends towards the second toe has caused millions of people to suffer.
You might want to be checking your toes now and see if there's a bump. If there is, big or small, you should not take your bunion for granted. Over time, a bunion will cause pain you wouldn't imagine having.
One way that has been proven to remove this painful bump is going under the knife. But don't jump to surgical solutions just yet because we have a noninvasive treatment for you– a bunion corrector toe straightener!
This article will show you how toe bunion correctors and treatments help fight and eliminate bunion pain.
Symptoms and Growing Stages of a Bunion
If you happen to experience these telltale signs, you might have bunions:
- your big toe angling towards your other toes
- redness or inflammation on the base of your big toe
- calluses forming underneath your big toe and second toe
- muscle spasms making it difficult to move your toe
And yes, bunions grow worse if you ignore them and leave them untreated. Like a pregnant mother's belly, the bunion protrudes through the years.
The four stages of bunion growth are:
- Primary Stage or Mild: The bunion is very small as the big toe joint creates a tiny bump. This stage is the rise of the bunion.
- Secondary Stage or Moderate: As time passes, your big toe starts to form an angle and deviate towards the outside of your foot. The pain starts here.
- Third Stage or Severe: Your bunion is all grown-up and meets up with your second toe–either overlapping or under-riding. Either way, both can cause you a lot of pain and redness on your toes. You might want to hold off the tight-fitting shoes for a while.
- Arthritic bunion: Your big toe joint is far more difficult to repair and may need to be reconstructed and replaced by joint implants.
Bunions don't get better without proper care. It would be best if you did something before it became irreversible. If your bunion is still in the mild stage, we still have a chance to avoid invasive treatments.
When Do You Use a Big Toe Straightener Bunion Corrector?
A bunion corrector is one of many nifty inventions to ease the pain your turnip is causing. You can buy this pain-relieving tool at pharmacies and shoe shops in-store or online.
You can start using a bunion corrector as soon as you feel a slight bump on your big toe. However, having a foot X-ray is a better way to tell if you have bunions.
The weight-bearing X-ray of your foot can show if there are any irregularities and the degree of your toe deviation. We can tell how severe your bunions are and if bunion correctors can help stop the development.
How Does a Toe Bunion Corrector Work?
We're not just talking about the skin or the muscle in this type of foot pain. Bunion pain involves the bone which has been repeatedly pressured. Thus, your body resolves the pain by making more bones in your big toe joint and deforming its position.
A bunion corrector is designed to use gradual force to correct your protruded toe and return it to its natural form. There are different looks and materials used to make bunion correctors. Generally, it's a toe spacer so that your big toe won't bump into your other toes.
Some bunion correctors like the toe separators can fit in your shoes. In contrast, bunion splints are designed to support your big toe from the side. Therefore, you only wear splints at night or when resting.
You can say that bunion correctors, toe splints, or toe separators (whichever you may call them) have similar ways braces help align your teeth over time. These devices put some pressure on your toe to straighten it. And hopefully, someday, you don't need to wear one anymore.
Does a Bunion Corrector and Toe Straightener Work?
While the idea of bunion correctors seems convenient and fanciful, there are no proven cases wherein bunion splints effectively remove your bunion.
Research has shown that although they don't correct your toe's position, bunion splints can provide some pain relief while you wear them. In addition, walking, running, and resting with a toe bunion corrector are less painful than without.
Many people still believe that bunion correctors may slow down your bunion development despite this scientific conclusion. However, scientists and experts should do more research to understand the full extent of the bunion corrector's effect.
Other Bunion Treatments
Don't throw in the towel just yet despite recent information on bunion correctors. There are plenty of nonsurgical options, such as:
- Wearing proper footwear like wearing orthopedic shoes in wide width: Specialized footwear is designed with a wide width and a toe box so that there's no stress on your big toe.
- Foot mobilization therapy: It's a form of massage that helps you loosen up your tight feet. You can easily perform this therapy with or without a podiatrist. You grab your feet with both hands and make circular or forward-backward movements.
- Orthotic therapy: Your food doctor will do a series of tests to make a custom-fit orthotic for you to reduce the pressure on your bunion.
- Corrective exercise: A series of simple exercises that will correct your big toe and strengthen your feet’s core
Of course, it also involves taking pain medications and using gel or foam pads for pain relief. Mild to moderate stages of bunion don't need surgery right away. However, for severe cases, you might need to resort to bunionectomy.
Bunionectomy or surgical bunion removal involves reducing the excess bones or bunion on your big toe joint. It sounds painful. Fortunately, your feet will be completely numb during this procedure. And after 12 weeks, you can say goodbye to the pain you once knew.
Causes of Bunions and Prevention
Before you blame your expensive heels or narrow boots, you might want to consider your genes. Abnormalities such as weak connective tissues, being flatfooted, having a short calf muscle, or having rheumatoid arthritis have some contributing factors to bunions.
However, your poor-fitting shoes can aggravate your bunion pain, causing it to grow even worse. So to prevent you from undergoing surgery or using a toe bunion corrector, you may opt to do the following:
- Wear comfy, flat footwear
- Walk barefoot more often
- Avoid tight footwear
- Lessen your time wearing pointed heels or shoes
Final Thoughts
Bunion correctors don't help straighten our big toe, but they help alleviate the bunion pain, no matter how short the pain relief is. It can slow down bunion progression, but experts should study this theory more.
Surgery might be the only proven solution to ease discomfort on your feet, but you don't have to wait for years to solve your bunion problem today. Nonsurgical treatments can prevent or even cure your bunion religiously if you do these methods.
If you find our bunion corrector article enlightening and informative, you will like our other interesting reads here at Ergotoes. Check them out.
August 2, 2022
