(slaps)
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we have the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- And today, Brad, our subscribers are in luck.
- Yep.
- Because we're gonna show you the absolute best treatment
as Brad put it emphatically,
the best treatment for Morton's Neuroma.
And the reason we know that is
'cause Brad has Morton's Neuroma.
- You bet. And I've worked with patients
and when this treatment,
which is very nice and right at home works,
your pain can be at eight over 10 high pain,
you put it in and it turns it off.
- Excellent
- Experienced it myself.
I have patients that do it.
It doesn't mean it works all the time,
but when it works, it works.
And it's really the good thing about it's cheap.
So very quickly Morton's Neuroma is an inflamed nerve
that happens in your foot.
Generally happens between...
can we show them on the skeleton?
- Oh, that's a good idea.
- I'll show the picture while you get that ready.
It's an inflamed nerve that happens between the...
How am I doing?
Down, right there.
Between the second and third Metatarsal
or the third and fourth Metatarsal.
There's the inflamed nerve.
Now Brad's gonna show you on the foot.
- Okay. So we're looking at the bottom of the foot here.
Here's the big toe.
- Okay. Here's the heel of course.
And it's gonna be right here.
Can you they see that Lonnie?
- That's between the third and fourth.
- Yeah, it could be there or it could be there.
You'll know where it is, 'cause when you push on it,
it's gonna hurt, it's gonna make you say bad things.
- And people, from what I've read, it sounds like
it feels like there's a pebble in your shoe, right?
- Yeah.
- Or worse?
- Right. It's gonna make you limp if it gets bad.
- Okay. This is the number one treatment that we suggest.
All right, Brad, take it away, baby.
- Okay. So what we need to do essentially,
let's get down on my foot here.
Mine is right there.
Okay. When it hurts, if I push on that, it hurts a lot.
So I don't do that of course when it's flared up.
But what we need to do is take the pressure off that.
When you walk on your shoes and pressure goes
through your foot on there, it hurts because you're
irritating the inflamed tissues.
We need to spread the force out
to the healthy tissues around it.
And you'll find that if you put, you can't go up here
'cause you've got bones from your tarsals and metatarsals
where the joints are.
If you go right below it, it kind of,
in the arch of your foot, right around in here,
it's kind of specific.
You just have to get some cushion in there
take the pressure off the neuroma
and get it onto the healthy tissue.
And when you do it and you get in the right spot
it makes you smile when you walk.
And it's really fun as a therapist,
when the person walks out and they're just loving you
because they're feeling so much better. Now--
- The pad is gonna go right in the arch of the foot.
- Right.
- Okay.
- If you can buy pads made for this,
you could go online, look up Morton's neuroma pads.
You could go to a lot of shoe stores they may have them.
What I did because I'm kind of a tight wad and I know
that I can make it work without buying something.
So I just went home and I got some cushion
you could use felt.
I used some squishy insulation from copper pipe
and I cut it up to make it work.
This is some pad that wasn't the right size.
It's for cushion in the foot, but it wasn't the right shape.
So I just took some scissors.
I cut it about the size of a quarter or silver dollar.
- That'd be more of a dollar.
- Yeah, whatever.
About that big, you know you can hold your finger like that.
And then I'm gonna cut a second one
because you don't wanna just put a flat piece in,
you want a little bit of a bump,
and I'm gonna take this, and this happens to have
some sticky stuff on here,
and I'm gonna put that in the middle there.
And there's no definite rules about, so--
- This is the part that's gonna pressure
up against your foot, right? Not this part.
- Right.
- This part, that's against the skin.
- You're gonna see what I like to do is,
you can't put it in your shoe and slip your foot in there,
otherwise it pushes it out in the wrong spot.
So take your insert out, put it.
And you're gonna have to guess where it goes
so it lines up to the--
- Oh, it's underneath the insert.
- Underneath the insert.
- Oh, okay.
- And then what I always do is I just take some tape,
duct tape.
I like duct tape, but you can use any kind of tape,
and you're gonna rip it like so,
and this is getting right down to some handyman stuff,
and you gotta just put a little sliver tape on there
just to hold it. Okay.
And then you slip it in your shoe,
get the insert where it belongs and will stay there.
And now you can't see the pad and you can slip
your foot in and it will not move 'cause it's stuck
with the tape and it will be there
as long as you need it there.
And I can feel right now I need to move it back.
- Okay.
- It's not in the right spot,
'cause when it's in the right spot, it'll feel real good.
And I can feel the bump is more under my toes than that.
So simply you have to take it out and...
- It may need some adjusting, in other words.
- You may have to do this a few times.
I've done like three or four times before you get it right.
And you'll know 'cause it's starting to get right,
and it's feeling good, and you'll say,
God, if it's just back a little bit more,
so then you go ahead and do that and you just move it.
Keep the tape there.
I wanna move this back a little bit like that.
- Brad, would you say when you have Morton's Neuroma,
could you put that pad in there
and would you be able to run then?
Or would that be just too much?
- No, I think you could.
If it's not too bad, yeah.
- You definitely could walk.
- Oh yeah, It makes a big difference.
- Okay.
- I get mine when I ride my bicycle.
I've got shoes and I clip into the pedals
and if I ride a long ride, it hurts so ungodly bad,
that I just, it's just not fun to ride anymore.
- And that will take it away.
- Yeah. And I work with this.
That's a little bit different
because it's in the bike shoe, but yeah.
I work with my inserts and get the pressure off
because you're not stepping on a regular shoe.
But when it works, it works great.
And I've experienced myself, had patients experience it.
- Can we name just a few other things Brad
that people might do for this?
- Sure.
- I mean, do you want to name some? Well ice...
- Oh right. Yeah the treatment.
- Some people even massage around the nerve
but you said you definitely can't put your fingers
on that nerve that will just fire up.
- If it's flared up you yeah, you gotta go around it.
- Rest.
- Yeah.
- Avoid wearing tight pointed shoes.
You want to really have a big toe box.
You wanna avoid wearing high heels.
Like you normally do Brad, right?
(chuckles)
Because when you wear those high heels
puts a lot of pressure on them, on that nerve.
- And the other thing I just noticed too, is that
if you have shoes that are, that the toe box is concave,
or it actually goes down, they're not built very well,
that kind of squishes all that tissue together
and irritates it as well.
So you might just need a new pair of shoes or style.
- You certainly can take an anti-inflammatory.
- Yeah.
- You know ibuprofen or something along there,
you said you've done that Brad.
- Yeah. When it's in an acute phase, I'll do that.
- But people have had luck with corticosteroid injections,
and I think they also do some other injections in there
which is beyond our scope.
- Yeah, that's to the doctor.
- And I have seen it where they have done surgery even.
- Sure. Yep
- So those are the things you can try, but absolutely.
The first thing you want to try is the Morton's pad.
- Yep.
- Morton's neuroma pad.
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(slaps)
- All right.
- Thumbs up, Brad.