Let’s Talk About Why the Toes Are so Strange
It’s time to talk about the burning issues, which should be a relief for everyone who has read the last few parts . As always, I am here to answer questions that you might find it odd to ask anyone else.
Today’s question is from a reader whose toes baffle him.
Toes? You can probably wiggle them all individually. You can probably roll them up so hard that you can essentially hide them under your foot. It seems that everyone has such dexterity.
I do not.
I cannot curl my toes, I cannot move each toe individually, I cannot hide them under my foot or roll them on the carpet or something!
I don’t know why or what it is, I feel like the doctor would just advise me to stretch more, but my big toe can only move back before it gets sick, and that’s a little bit. My legs are fine, I don’t have any rare diseases or anything else I know about besides asthma.
Trying to google this is going nowhere, I never asked my doctor, but I was so curious to know if it’s called something and how to get this flexibility in my legs.
In fact, I cannot move all of my toes individually. I can move my big toe apart from the other four, but that’s about it. Can other people wiggle their toes more dexterously than the two of us?The littlemermaid may , but I’m not sure what she thinks.
So I asked our interviewee if he could send in a video to find out if his toes really deserve attention. I expected I would just have to inform him that not all of us have elegant, flexible, ballet-ready toes. But then he showed it to me. No, this is not normal.
It seems that our writer does not know how to bend his fingers at all. In a later email, he told me that he expected the experts I consulted to immediately recognize this: “I would have thought they would say, ‘Oh, this is the classic case of _______.’ I thought this shit would have a name! “
This shit has no name. Let’s take a look at the possibilities of what’s going on here, from the most frightening to the most hopeful, and we’ll end by describing how we are all imperfect compared to cartoon mermaids.
Serious stuff
“If he had an injury or severe back pain and suddenly lost the ability to move his toes, I would ask if he had a spinal cord injury or severe nerve compression, but that doesn’t sound like him. , says physical therapist Jasmine Markus . Another physical therapist, Jason Cart , adds that tarsal tunnel syndrome is a type of nerve compression that can lead to problems with flexing the toes. Brain problems can also cause problems with the activation of the leg muscles, he said, “but there will be many other really strange symptoms along with it.”
Gout and bursitis can also cause mobility problems in the toes, but this does not seem to be the case.
Stretching and strengthening
Marcus asked if our questioner could passively flex the toes, grabbing them with his hands and moving them to the desired position. “If they can, his problem is most likely with the muscles, and I would recommend stretching and strengthening the muscles in his legs.” Indeed, he can bend them passively, but his big toe does not bend as much and tends to make a clicking sound when forced.
“Keep stretching, but there might be something wrong with the joints of the toes, such as arthritis,” she says. Kart adds that a small bone spur is also possible.
Both agreed that our interrogator should try to stretch and strengthen the muscles in his feet and legs. If your toes do not flex well when you walk, your legs and hips may need to compensate for this, which can lead to further injury. Conversely, leg problems can lead to leg problems.
At some point in our conversation, our friend noticed that he had never had any other leg problems other than shin splints. “Now the truth [th] is coming out!” said Kart. A shin splint is more common in people with flat feet, and flat feet go hand in hand (uh, foot) with overly stretched muscles in the lower foot. The muscles that need to bend your toes may be too weak to do their job.
Whatever the reason, toe exercises can help a little, increasing strength, flexibility, and perhaps a little motor control, which can help our writer start dreaming of wiggling his toes. One way to start:foot yoga .
Okay, but what’s okay?
Is it so unusual for your toes to be a little stiff, or that you can’t move individually? This is actually completely normal, says Kart:
As a physical therapist, I see feet all day. There are many variations in structure. Just go to the beach and you will know what I mean. Some of these variations are genetic, some are derived mechanically from your walking patterns. There is a wide variety of normals here.
Not being able to wiggle your toes individually is not a problem unless you are a [nonhuman] primate. Our big toe has muscles that move it, so they will move on their own. Unlike the hand, the other toes basically have multiple muscles that are involved in all of them together. (This is why you cannot give a friend a middle toe.)
That’s it for this Burning Questions series. If you have any burning questions of your own, please email me at beth.skwarecki@lifehacker.com (please include a SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTION in the subject line) or fill out the anonymous form at bethskw.sarahah.com .