How can you tell if your foot problem is not a stress fracture? My foot hurts on top (almost feels like pinched nerve, bruised,burning feeling) Foot hurts more in evening. Increased prednisone does not seem to be helping but one motrin at night does seem to help. Staying off of helps and elevating and ice. I have no other aches on my body now with RA since prednisone was increased to 20mg. But foot does not feel like prednisone has helped at all.

So perhaps this is stress fracture from overwalking too much. Who do you go to? Call Rheumy since he is familiar with all your aches? Go to gp and get x-ray. At my gp you have to go to clinic first where they send you to x-ray and then back to regular gp to read. (takes forever). Perhaps foot needs to be immobilized which is what I read they do for stress fractures.

Hi Wendy,
My experience with stress fractures was the following: my rheumy handled everything, he ordered an xray first, and when that came back showing nothing abnormal, I insisted there was something wrong, and where he does know he so well, he believed me and ordered an MRI of the foot and ankle. This revealed the stress fracture and also severe inflammation in all the tendons and ligaments. The doctor said it was the worst inflammation he had seen on an MRI. He put me on Orencia but it is not working. I do not know what the next step will be for me. I think you should ask for the xray, but if it does not reveal anything, I would press for an MRI. Good luck and keep us posted.
Hugs
Mary

Something like this you have to have checked out by a podiatrist, or ortho/foot/.ankle guy..

It could also be a tendon issue. The tendons support the bones.

My tibial tendons ruptured, and they supported my flat feet, so my feet caved in badly. And it was painful, foot pain was probably the most painful surgery i ever had, and way too many of them, and not willing to have more, at this time.

They couldn't do a tendon transfer to another tendon..so they had to fuse my ankles, several times.Thats all behind me now, but i used to get pain on top of foot, and even while i was sitting..which leads me to having a foot doctor check things out, possibly tendon pain

thank you for your reply! I do take lyrica, I take 300 mg daily, and have taken up to 600 daily, but I did not notice a difference in my foot pain. I thought it was odd that it didnt help, but I do also take ibuprofen, and oxycontin ER. This takes the edge off, but thats it, and it doesnt touch the burning pain. I have also tried celebrex, and I did not notice any difference from taking the ibuprofen, so I just take that. I have been quite a mystery for my doctor all along, and never seem to respond to treatments as expected. thanks and I hope you are well :)

thanks, Wendy. I ended up using the self adhesive bandage last night.....put it on after my day of being out and about , but before eating and tv watching (since as I said, my foot/ankle hurts even more after sitting around)
and, guess what, it helped ! Now , I know better than to jinx myself and assume I found a fix for problem.
But it sure was nice to have even a temporary easing up of pain.
So thank you so much for that idea.
I used to have high arches but now have no arches.....is this part of RA, or old age or overweight ? Anyone know?

as for burning pain, I don't know what I'm talking about only that someone told me once about my wrist, that when it burns it is from swelling.
(but , maybe nerve pain causes a burning feeling too?? I do not know but think I've heard that)
Regarding what others have said, my prednisone and all my meds seem to help with the rest of my body except my darn right foot, and right ring finger. :-(

Although I see Enbrel, Humira and Orencia written about often, I don't see Simponi much at all. I've been on it for over 6 months and it's cut down the inflammation drastically. I'm not saying I don't have bad days, and I do flare (usually from overdoing it) but even on my best day with Enbrel, I never had inflammation control as I do with Simponi. I don't think Simponi is the last drug I'll ever try for my RA but I can say it worked better than Enbrel and Humira for me. Maybe it will work even better for some of you.
Joanie

Went to gp today for foot where they x-rayed and saw a possible small fracture at base of toe. Got me into orthopedic this afternoon. Orthopedic gave me a "fracture" shoe. It is not a boot. It has a hard sole and fits around top of foot with velco. Only about $31 but my foot feels better already. Said to wear it about 2-3 weeks, come back in a month.

I was asking him about my athletic shoes. I wear Nike Voomero, if these were okay. I used to wear an insole with higher arch in them but I too have found my arch is not as high anymore. And my foot seems to be longer. Lots of my shoes are too short. The Ortho said I did not have a high arch. Did RA do this and if it did, that's a good thing. Now I can wear my regular shoes.

Good news besides that is that I can cut back prednisone since Rheumy thought might be a huge flare was really just a hurt foot. Now I know some of that inflammation came from RA. But Ortho repeated what I know is that prednisone can cause bones to weaken and cause stress fractures. So i am thrilled I can cut back on prednisone and once I'm down to 5 (in couple of weeks) the enbrel if it is going to work (second time around-you all know the story) will be working enough to come off of prednisone altogether.

The only bad thing about this news is that I was hoping it would get me out of "fricking cold"wedding in Ohio first of February. But looks like I am going to make it. Fat prednisone body and all. lol

Thanks for Simponi tip, I will keep that one in mind.