Back to work, back to play.
Hey, Dr. Noah Volz here, to give you evidence-based exercises to heal common
complaints. Today, I have four exercises for Morton's neuroma, so, these four exercises will
help you cure Morton's neuroma quickly. Hopefully you already have a diagnosis, if you don't,
Morton's neuroma often is uh, considered to be kind of a toe pain. It happens on the ball of the
foot, it can be a burning pain, it often lasts up to ten minutes. Uh oftentimes, this Morton's
neuroma type pain, it can almost feel like you're walking on a marble, it feels like there's some
sort of kind of obstruction on the bottom of the foot. Uh you can even have some sort of numbness
or loss of sensation in that area, and sometimes it even travels up the leg a little bit. So if you
have any of these symptoms these four exercises will help you with those and they will strengthen
your lower leg and your foot. So I'll go ahead and introduce the exercises now. All right, so the
first exercise that I want to introduce is called the plantar fascia towel, and so you're basically
using your toes and you're kind of scrunching your toes up in order to move a towel. You'll want to
do this for about one minute, uh usually with Morton's neuroma you only feel on one foot, and
so if that's the case, then you just do it on that foot, you don't really need to do it on the other
foot, you can do it for symmetry but it's not required. So again, you do this for one minute,
I'll go ahead and show you how to do that now. So, I have a towel on the table but you'll want
to do this on the floor, and I'm just going to go ahead and adjust the camera a little bit here
so you can see this better. Good, so my foot is at the edge of the towel and then I'm just scrunching
up my toes, scrunching the towel and I'm bringing it under my feet. I've also seen this where the,
the towel is at the other edge and you're kind of scrunching your feet and trying to bring the towel
closer to you. People who love video games love this version because it feels like they're really
starting to accomplish something. Again, you're just doing this for an entire minute, so that's
the first exercise. So the second exercise for Morton's neuroma is to roll your foot out on ball,
and so I have a specific ball that I'm using today, you can use a golf ball, a lacrosse
ball, a tennis ball. This ball is kind of specific for the feet, it's called a Rubz, um so that's
what I'll be using today. Again, like the previous exercise you want to do this for an entire minute,
really rolling everything out on that foot where you have symptoms, and you can do it also do it
on the other foot, feels great so it doesn't hurt at all. So I'll go ahead and show you that, again,
you can do this on the floor, but I'm gonna do on the table, make it easier for you to see. So,
just placing the ball here, and I'm just rolling out my foot on the ball, inside, outside, between
the toes. Oftentimes you'll find a specific spot that's kind of sore and just roll it out,
you can go fast or slow, um there's no real rhyme or reason you just do what feels good. So, that is
the second exercise. So the third exercise of our series is a standing calf stretch, it's kind of
your traditional calf stretch, the, the difference here is that you're doing a contract-relax cycle,
so you're going into the stretch for about seven seconds, and then you're really contracting for
about three seconds, and then you're stretching for seven, and you're contracting for three,
and you're doing three cycles of that and you want to do that at least two times a day, so this is a
standing calf stretch, sometimes called a standing gastroc stretch, so that's the, the anatomical
name of that muscle. So I'll go ahead show you that on the chiropractic table now, promise I'm
going to sanitize the table after I'm done with this, having my feet on the table, but I'll go
ahead and show you this now. So my feet are about four feet apart, I'm bending my front knee, so I
start to get into that stretch, I'm really feeling it in my calf and then I'm holding that for seven
seconds and then I'm pushing my heel into the ground, almost bringing my toes up just a little
bit to really engage that calf, and then I'll bend into that knee a little bit deeper. Try and keep
that front knee over your toes, stretching out for seven seconds and then straightening the leg
strong really engaging into the calf, contracting as much as possible, and then one more cycle
relaxing for seven seconds, and then engaging one last time, and then go ahead and come out of
it. And like all the others you can go ahead and allow yourself to do it on the other side just for
symmetry, but it's not required, and then we'll go into the very last one. So the last exercise here
is the seated resisted big toe strengthening. So oftentimes Morton's neuroma happens between some
of the other toes but it's really important to strengthen as well as stretch out the bottom of
the foot in order to alleviate the pain here, and so the best way to do this is to loop some sort
of strap or towel or CLX band around the toe, and then go ahead and flex the toe forward. So I'll go
ahead and show you how to do that, you'll want to do this about ten times, and you'll want to
do three sets of that. So, I'm seated here, my leg is extended, I'm reaching forward wrapping
this band around my toe, and I'm gonna pull that, so that it's pulling my toe back towards the rest
of my body, and then I'm gonna go ahead and bring the toe away from me as much as possible. As you
can see my whole foot moves, but I really want to focus on just getting that toe to move away
from me and strengthening there, and so you're moving pretty slow and you're doing ten of these,
and then you'll want to do three sets of that. So that's the last exercise, that I'll have do
you do for the Morton's neuroma, and then we'll kind of go into what you can expect from these
different exercises. So you can anticipate some immediate relief upon doing these exercises.
After seven days, if the exercises are going to do their job, the pain is going to go away
completely. If you find that you're doing these exercises and things are not working correctly,
either you're not getting the results that you anticipate or anything else is going on, there's
probably a more complicated process happening, so feel free to set up a 20-minute consult with us
here at ProActive Chiropractic, we can go through the exercises with you, that would be free,
or bring it up at one of your sessions with us, or if you have another chiropractor or doctor or
foot specialist that you really trust and really like working with, set up some time with them and
really dig in and figure out exactly what's going on and how you can get better in the shortest
amount of time possible. That's, that's really important and that's really the goal of this
video, is to give you some proactive strategies that can really help you get out of pain as soon
as possible, and keep you out of the doctor's office, including ours. So thank you so much
for watching, and I look forward to meeting with you next time, offering you some other
evidence-based exercises to keep you healthy. Thanks again. Subscribe ProActive Chiropractic.