How Stretches Can Help Your Hammertoe Pain

Now that the warm temperatures of early summer have arrived, you may be spending a lot more time in sandals, flip-flops and open-front shoes. Notice anything different about your toes? Maybe one or more of them looks a bit odd, with the middle joint poking up like one of the Front Range peaks on the western skyline. Could be you have the beginnings of hammertoes, a toe deformity caused by muscle and ligament imbalance.

Help relieve your toe pain by relaxing tight tendons and strengthening loose muscles with these exercises and stretches for hammertoes:

• Sit on the floor with your legs straight out and a towel looped around your toes. Pull back gently and hold 20 seconds. Repeat 3 times, then change feet. To do this while sitting on a chair, put one foot on the other thigh and use your hand to pull back gently and release the tension in your toes.
• While seated, try picking up objects like marbles with your toes and releasing them into a container.
• Now lay a towel down with the edge under your toes and use them to pull it back under your feet.
• Next, point your big toes down while lifting the others up and lightly tap (not hammer!) the floor with them a dozen times. Relax, then lift the great toes and lower the others, tapping the floor with them a dozen times.
• Still seated, put one foot on your thigh and thread your fingers between the toes. Try to squeeze them together (pinching your fingers) and relax 10 times, and then repeat with the other foot.
• Now stand on a flat surface and lift the fronts of your toes off the floor. Roll them down onto the floor again from littlest to biggest, as you would drum your fingers on a table top.

These will get you started to loosen tight toes and keep them flexible, but you really should come in and let the foot specialists at Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle Center have a look at them. We can test for biomechanical or nervous system problems that could be contributing to your bent toes, and offer other treatments to keep them straight and relieve pain. Call us in Golden or Wheat Ridge, CO today by dialing (303) 423-2520. You can also schedule an appointment online.