Stress Fractures are small cracks and breaks in a bone. We see them quite often in the long bones of the foot called the metatarsals.
Stress Fractures are cuased by repetitive injury due to inappropriate shoe gear, increasing a workout training program too quickly, poor bone quality due to underlying medical history like osteoporosis and plain old overuse injury.
You shouldn’t have foot pain so don’t ignore your symptoms. If you have pain, increased redness, swelling, warmth to an area without a break in the skin you may hae a stress fracture.
Immediate treatment is criticial to prevent further injury, and start appropriate recovery.
Initially, x-rays may be negative for a stress fracture but based off of your symptoms we offload the foot.
Unfortunately sometimes it isn’t seen on an X-ray for several weeks.
