Hammertoes are a foot condition that occur when certain ligaments in our toes get damaged. This causes the ligament to contract, forcing the toe to bend upwards. In the beginning stages, these bent toes may only be unsightly, but that doesn’t mean that you’re immune from uncomfortable symptoms down the road. In fact, when a hammertoe progresses from a soft, flexible hammertoe to a firm or rigid version, pain and discomfort often accompany.
Naturally, this leads people to wonder if a soft hammertoe can be reversed and flattened before it progresses to its rigid form. In today’s blog, we explain some of the treatment techniques used to try and reverse a flexible hammertoe.
Reversing Soft Hammertoes
Before we dive into some of the techniques that may help to reverse your flexible hammertoe, we need to ensure that you don’t keep accidentally making the condition worse. Oftentimes hammertoes develop and worsen as a result of poor footwear choices. If your shoes are too tight, your toes will naturally be scrunched, and chronically being in this position can harm those toe ligaments. So before you proactively treat the problem, you need to evaluate your shoes and make sure that you switch to a better-fitting shoe that allows your toes to lay flat.
Once you’ve done that, here are some treatment techniques you can pursue to actively help strengthen and heal the soft tissues that aid in toe control.
1. Physical Therapy – Physical therapy is the best active form of treatment for soft hammertoes. Your physical therapist or foot specialist will set you up with some simple toe movement exercises that you can perform from the comfort of your home. Slowly but surely, if you stick to the program, your toe ligaments will get stronger and you’ll notice that your soft hammertoe is flattening. If it doesn’t flatten, a PT program should at least help to keep the condition from worsening.
2. Custom Orthotics – Orthotic inserts can change how stress is dispersed on your feet and toes, and this can help to take some strain off your toe ligaments. Most generic inserts won’t be able to provide the intended effect, but a foot specialist can custom build an orthotic to your specific foot pattern so that your toes can be better protected when you’re wearing shoes.
3. Splinting – Toe splinting or toe taping is another effective technique for helping the toe ligaments get used to a naturally flat position. You can have your doctor show you how to apply a splint, or you can look up hammertoe taping tutorials on Youtube to learn how you can quickly perform the technique yourself so that you can apply and deconstruct the splint as you see fit.
If you do these three things and you take action as soon as you notice that a hammertoe is forming, we’re confident that you’ll be able to reverse your soft hammertoe. If you put off treatment for too long, they can transition to a stiff hammertoe, which typically requires surgery to treat.