If one or more of your toes doesn’t lay flat when your foot is on the ground, you’re not alone. Millions of Americans have one or more “floating toes,” and while it may not currently be painful, that doesn’t mean you can just ignore it indefinitely. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at the causes of floating toes, and we talk about effective treatment options.
The Causes And Symptoms Of Floating Toes
A floating toe occurs when one or more toes are permanently lifted off the ground when your foot is in a neutral position. Although it can develop in any toe, the condition tends to be more common in your second toe. When your toe doesn’t lie flat, it is not in a natural position. Your toes should be in contact with the ground about 75 percent of the time when we’re walking, so if the toe isn’t where it’s supposed to be, it can’t provide the necessary support to the foot complex. Other areas can pick up this slack, but this shift in stress distribution can have long term consequences for your feet, including the eventual onset of chronic metatarsalgia.
But what causes a floating toe to develop? In many cases, they develop as a result of footwear choices, acute injury or genetics. For example, poor footwear can lead to a tightening or loosening of the extensor tendons or ligaments in your toes, leading to positional changes. Poor footwear can also increase your risk of a bunion, and as your big toe shifts out of natural alignment, it can cause alignment issues for your adjacent toe. Acute injury or a genetic predisposition to metatarsophalangeal joint stiffness or metatarsal shifting can also cause your toes to lift off the ground.
Symptoms of a floating toe include:
- A toe that is lifted off the ground when attempting to lay it flat
- A flexible or stiff bend in the joint in the affected toe
- Visual misalignment of the toe
Floating toes aren’t always painful, but they can be uncomfortable. Just know that the absence of pain does not mean that the condition can just be ignored.
Treating Floating Toes
As we mentioned above, an untreated floating toe can lead to other issues in your feet, so consider talking to your doctor if you notice that one or more of your toes doesn’t lay flat on the ground. In many instances, your floating toe is actually another condition in disguise, and we’ve talked about many of those conditions on the blog. Your floating toe may actually be an early stage:
- Bunion
- Hammertoe
- Claw Toe
In many cases, these issues can be resolved or progression can be halted by pursuing conservative treatment options. Switching to a more supportive shoe and partaking in some physical therapy exercises can oftentimes help your toe regain a more normal position. You’re not going to be able to completely shift your bunion back into a normal position, but you may find that symptoms or progression fade, which is helpful.
In the rare instance where the condition is painful and not responding to conservative care, your doctor may recommend a minimally invasive surgical procedure to address the affected bone or soft tissue. Your surgeon can speak in greater detail about the specifics of the procedure should it get to this point, but oftentimes a painless floating toe does not warrant this type of treatment.