We Save Soles

Another question I hear quite frequently in my office is “what caused my bunion”?

One of the most common misconceptions is that they are caused by shoes.  A picture I still remember to this day is that of a happy African native who never wore shoes with bunions the size of Cleveland.

Notice I said a “happy” native.  And that brings up an important secondary point.  While shoes do not cause bunions, they most definitely exacerbate them.

An easy answer would be to say that they’re heriditary.  In other words, look at the feet of your parents and you’ll know how susceptible you could be to forming a bunion.

A more involved answer would be to discuss the actions of the conjoined head of the adductor hallucis muscle.  This muscle inserts into the base of your proximal phalanx as shown in this wikipedia article.  If the vector of “pull” of this muscle gets altered , it starts to pull the proximal phalanx toward the outside of the foot, thus pushing your metatarsal (that which becomes prominent in a bunion) toward the inside.

I often visualize this for my patients by taking two pens that represent the two bones, and demonstrating the above.

Another post will be to discuss how the adductor halluces gets that abnormal vector pull in the first place.

Until then, be like an African native, and go shoeless.  Might help your bunion pain.