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steps to ease your discomfort.The most important thing is to ease the pressure on your foot, so instead of wearing flip flops, switch to sandals with a padded insole.
It may also help to stick a cushioned pad, like one designed for corns, on to the painful area.
Avoid high heels which push the weight forwards on the ball of your foot and, if you are wearing shoes (as opposed to sandals), fitting arch supports and foot pads at the toes inside the shoe can help.
Massaging the area with ice has been reported to help reduce pain so freeze a water-filled paper cup and roll it over the ball of your foot.
If your foot is really uncomfortable, then taking anti-inflammatory tablets such as ibuprofen can be really beneficial. If the diagnosis is confirmed and the pain persists, then a steroid injection may help.
If it doesn’t, surgery can be used to relieve the pressure or even remove the nerve entirely, but this can result in numbness in the toes nearby.
QI’VE had a problem with my bladder for some time. I can go for a wee and within five minutes I need to go again. In the last few weeks I’ve had to strain to empty my bladder. I’ve also put on half a stone after being slim all my life. I put this down to changing to a desk job, from one where I was either standing or up and down stairs all day. I’m 63 and had two children. Is this old age or something to be worried about?
ANEEDING to pee frequently and feeling you need to go even when there is little in your bladder is a common sign of a urine infection.
In younger women there is often a burning sensation as well, but in older women the main symptom is often just needing to go to the loo more often.
The first thing you need to do is arrange to have a urine analysis, which you can almost certainly arrange with your GP over the phone.All you may need is three days of antibiotics to sort this out.
Occasionally a need to pee frequently can be due to over-activity of the muscles of the bladder, which contract when it contains little urine.
This can normally be treated with special muscle relaxant tablets. If you have changed from an active daily life to a more sedentary one, then the calories you will need to keep your weight stable will go down, so if you have carried on eating and drinking as before then you are very likely to put on weight. Unfortunately, as we get older, the number of calories we need every day goes down and most women in their 60s only need around 1,500 a day, which is not a lot.
The best way of counteracting this drop in basic calorie needs is to take more exercise, so try and do at least half an hour every day, doing something that makes you a bit breathless. If your symptoms continue then contact your GP again.
If you have a health question for Dr Leonard, email her in confidence at yourhealth@express.co.uk. Dr Leonard regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence or reply to everyone.
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