Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis can affect any of the joints in your feet. As you get older, osteoarthritis can be linked to changes in the shape of your feet, which may cause pain.

Osteoarthritis often affects your big toe joint. It’ll become stiffer and you won’t be able to move it as far. You may develop osteophytes (an overgrowth of new bone), which will make your bones more knobbly, and a bunion (a lump on the side of your big toe joint).

Osteoarthritis is quite common in your arch area but can also develop in your ankle, usually if you’ve had a previous injury or damage to your joint from long-standing inflammatory arthritis.

If you have osteoarthritis in your feet, you’ll probably have osteoarthritis in some of your other joints, such as your hips or knees. This can make walking more difficult.

Inflammatory arthritis

There are several different forms of inflammatory arthritis which can affect your feet in different ways.

• Rheumatoid arthritis affects many joints in your feet.
• Reactive arthritis usually affects your ankle or the area around your heel. It may also affect your toes, causing pain and swelling. This is known as dactylitis or sausage toe.
• Psoriatic arthritis often causes dactylitis.
• Gout most commonly affects your big toe joint. It causes severe inflammation and makes your joint red, hot and swollen during an attack, which typically lasts 1–2 weeks. Without treatment, repeated attacks can cause permanent damage to your joint and lead to osteoarthritis. However, gout can usually be well controlled with medications.
• Ankylosing spondylitis mainly affects your spine but may also affect your heels.

Apart from problems in your joints, you may have inflammation and discomfort in the tendonsand the other soft tissues in your feet. The part under or behind your heel where the tendons attach to your heel bone (your Achilles tendon) is quite often affected in this way.