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Differential dx? Stress fracture or DJD?

(2 discussions)

I was at a convention last week.
I’ll admit I was wearing crappy shoes (flat, no arch support), and hoofing it up and down the McCormic center.
I exercise and am not overweight, and I’ve done some hiking, but I never had the kind of pain that I got around late morning of the second day.
Under my left ankle, sort of wrapping around to the underside of the left edge of my foot.
It felt like a sprain type of pain, and that’s what I thought it was.Over the next two days it got worse, very painful in the morning (I could barely walk) or if I sat for a while, but once I warm it up a bit I can hobble and by the end of the day walk on it.
I went to the ER when I got home and he said that the x-ray was negative for a fracture, but I had a bunch of bone spurs and signs of osteoarthritis, and that my pain was caused by DJD, and welcome to getting old.
I was mystified as to how one has a sudden acute onset of osteoarthritis on a Friday morning, especially when I don’t have a family history of it, but he said that it was probably a flair-up, and I’d injured my foot a lot over the years, and wrote me a script for some ketoprofin.
He showed me some nobby bumps on his knuckle caused by the same thing, but I don’t have anything like that.
I’ve been using a cane to take some of the pressure off my foot since then (about 6 days) because I’m a teacher, but it still aches like crazy when I sit or when it gets cold, or sometimes just from standing.
My son called from the Army and said he’d gotten a stress fracture and was on leave for a bit, and that the first x-ray was negative.
I’m wondering if I should go in for a second x-ray, or to a different doc for a second opionion?
At the end of the day there is a little swelling over the pain.


2 comments

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    9 10

    I forgot to mention that, sometimes when I flex my foot a little, I feel a kind of vibrating noise, inside, near the pain.

      Vivian Abrams DPM

      9 10

      You should see another doctor, preferably a podiatrist who will take another X-ray. It is true that a stress fracture may not show up immediately. You might also have something going on with a tendon, which would probably require an MRI. Life is too short to limp- get it looked at!Good luck. Vivian A DPM

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