Metatarsal Pad (Correct Placement)

hey everyone this is Paul from Ortho valpal I had to do a video about how to place a metatarsal pad onto an orthotic I get this question so often it's incredible um so I think that we should probably start with you know what is a metatarsal pad and it's generally this little teardrop device here that usually comes in an orthotic uh and it's sometimes built into it and it's there to try to act as a little bit of a an arch builder for this part of the foot right here so the one thing I don't like about the ones that are already built into the orthotic is that sometimes they're not in the right position they may not be up high enough or back enough or they may not be in or out enough they're always kind of in a standard position and not really all that custom or individual for the person and so I often do custom orthotics but they can get a little bit pricey and uh we put those exactly where they need to be but when you can't get into a custom orthodtic um I've gone to the tread Labs only because uh they're super durable and they have a removable metatarsal pad that come in different sizes all right but in order to know where to put this I think we should just understand the bottom of the foot a little bit better all right so what is meditar Salia well if you take a look at the bottom of the foot you're going to see that this is where the shaft of the bone is okay and what happens is you have this joint and this joint exists right over here here's one here's another and those are the two that are most commonly affected and this one down here can also be affected now it can happen on all five um but that's all right usually it's one of these three and usually the second and the third toes are the ones that are most affected and what happens is these joints strike the floor too hard and when they do um they just get inflamed and irritated and thickened and people will say it feels like I have a sock that's bunched up in here or maybe there's a stick or it's like walking on a marble or a rock um in this part of the foot all right so what we want to do is we want to try to take some pressure off of that area by using the metatarsal pad all right um most people who have metatarsalgia lose this arch in this part of the foot so the metatarsal PAD as you can see here is a little bit thicker in the middle and it tapers off to both sides and so that's going to help reestablish this arch in the foot this way the other thing that we're looking for is that the metatarsal we want to fall off of the Cliff of the metatarsal pad so we don't want to put this on the sour spot right because they're already having a lot of inflammation there we want to put this metatarsal pad just behind the sore joints okay so when they put weight on it it's going to help to reestablish the arch this way and it's also going to allow those joints to kind of fall off the cliff and get the benefit of not getting irritated with every step you take all right so the way we're going to do this in this particular insole is we're going to take that metatarsal pad and let's say that he's most tender underneath the second one we are going to put this pad in here closer to the second metat tarsel and put it under like this so that it strikes just behind that joint now usually it's the second and the third so we most commonly will put this piece this metatarsal pad in the middle between the two it's velcro and then the the metatarsal heads are going to land around it and not necessarily on it all right and um these particular insoles come with different size metatarsal pads this happens to be a large uh Michael here is a size 11 shoe um but if you're maybe in a size five or six you want to get the small ones and then if you're running around the eights and nines you probably want to be into a medium metatarsal pad um I recommend doing this on both sides because typically if you have it on one you're likely to get it on the other side um and so it's a real easy fix to take some discomfort off of the metatarsal heads this is a diagnosis that I probably have the most success treating just with a simple metatarsal pad and a good orthotic um it's important to improve the calf flexibility also with some stretching and we'll add a video um in the links toh show you how to do that appropriately also but I hope you enjoyed today's video on how to properly place a metatarsal pad in an orthotic for metatarsalgia um and if you enjoyed today's video please give us a like And subscribe thanks

Channel: Ortho Eval Pal with Paul Marquis PT

Views: 27,879

Keywords: how to place a metatarsal pad, metatarsalgia, pain in the ball of the foot, ball of the foot pain, metatarsal pads, met pads, metatarsal pain, orthotics for metatarsalgia, best orthotics for metatarsalgia, how to fix metatarsalgia, treating metatarsalgia, foot pain relief, Ortho eval pal, Paul Marquis PT, videos for PT's, orthopedic videos, metatarsalgia treatment

Id: MSYzdTfcczA

Length: 5min 8sec (308 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2023