How/when do toes break?

DonnaF

Isabel's post and its responses made me realize that breaking one's toe is a fairly common injury, and maybe I've just been lucky. But basically, I'm both clueless and clumsy and I want to avoid toe breaks without wearing steel-toed boots 24/7. How did you or a loved/not so loved one break that toe? Thx!

11 years ago

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12 replies

Latest reply was from Tina

Diana

Veteran

Well, I'm really clumsy and routinely stub my little toe by walking into furniture. My pinky toes are kind of misshapen and like to stick out slightly from the side of my foot, which facilitates injury. When I actually broke it, I opened a heavy door at work and hit my foot. My little toe went one way, the rest of my foot went the other. I was wearing sandals by the way. LOL, we are not really supposed to wear sandals at lab, but of course the injury I got had absolutely nothing to do with lab safety. Just personal clumsiness!

11 years ago

Isabel

Veteran

Donna, LOL ! I stubbed my toe on the steel wheel part of a rolling counter that I have in the kitchen. I walked past, didn't totally clear it and kicked it ( I was cleaning ). It also went between my toes, like Diana. My toe bone ended up splitting like a wishbone. Which is why it is having a hard time healing. With that said, I am really stubborn about not wearing slippers in the house. AND that was my problem. I stub my toes all the time when I am not wearing shoes. I am kinda clamsy too. At the age of 50, I have had more stubbed toes than I can remember - well over 25 - but no break so I never learned my lesson about slippers or house shoes. But this one just got hit the wrong way and I will be buying house shoes. : ) The funny thing is that it didn't hurt as much as the other times. But after an hour it was burning like all get out, which I had never felt before. If I had had on just regular slippers I wouldn't have broken my toe.

The moral is : just wear shoes. The trick is to not kick something so that your toes go in different directions. So closed toe shoes are enough. Unless you are lifting cement. LOL

Diana, that IS a no-no in the lab. Tsk, tsk. : )

11 years ago

Echo

Veteran

I grew up in a home with a stone hearth around the fireplace, and the hearth extended to a corner/turn into a hallway. So while running past there as a child, I must have smashed my toes countless times. I think my whole family routinely had broken toes! They would get all swollen and black and blue, but there wasn't anything to be done about it for the most part. The dr. couldn't splint them, and it wouldn't have mattered much anyway.

11 years ago

Suz

(website)

Veteran

I have never broken a toe. But my husband is famous for it.

Once he broke his toe by stubbing it when he was chasing his toddler son because said son had done something naughty.

(That falls into the "serves you right" category of breaks. Or at least that is what his now-grown son says, LOL.)

Once he broke it by stubbing it against some piece of outdoor equipment. I'm not sure what.

And once he broke it by sliding over on his shoe and wrenching it somehow.

In all cases he was wearing Birkenstocks.

You might understand now why I have something of a poison eye toward Birkenstocks.

11 years ago

doubleh

Veteran

My father in law manages to break his toe at the beach every summer by jamming it into the sand somehow. My sister broke her finger the same way. That's why when I go to the beach, I sit my behind down and stay put.

11 years ago

Windchime

Veteran

As a child, I stubbed my pinkie toe--hard--on a metal bedframe. I was either barefoot or wearing socks. It hurt SO much. Later I found out I'd broken the toe. Several years later, incredibly, I managed to do the same thing on the same bedframe, but with the pinkie toe on my other foot. As a result, both my pinkie toes are a little crooked and wider than normal.

11 years ago

carter

Veteran

Summer camp 1976, walking the boys back to the boys' camp bus after the big dance. I walked smack into a boulder in the pitch dark night. I broke the two toes next to the big toe with the current problem. I "jammed" the big toe according to the camp nurse. She just taped all three together and sent me on my way. According to the current podiatrist, this "jamming" was likely the initial precipitating incident that started the joint degeneration I'm dealing with today. The two toes that broke are fine...no signs of arthritis there. The second likely precipitating incident, which seems to have sped of the degeneration, was a very bad landing while running in heels about 4 years ago. That one felt like I stepped on a land mine. Didn't break it then either.

11 years ago

Gigi

Veteran

I was once carrying my laundry basket and not looking where I was going very well, and I caught half of my toes on the inside of the door frame as I tried to go from one bedroom into the other. I was walking really fast and really hit the door frame hard. The pain was really bad in my third toe, and it didn't subside as it usually does, so that's how I knew I had broken it.

I did find out, however, after this that I had weak bones—osteopenia (not osteoporosis). A friend of mine suggested that I get myself checked for this because he thought that even a good whack on a door frame shouldn't necessarily break a toe. I followed his advice, and sure enough, I did have weak bones. However, I will also say that I hit that door frame really hard and in a very particular way, and I think I might very well have broken the toe even if I had had strong bones.

11 years ago

Louise

Veteran

I dropped a plate vertically on my big toe and fractured it, ouch the pain still makes me wince though that was from the tissue swelling rather than the fracture. I had to wear thong sandals for weeks in the middle of winter!! X

11 years ago

Mochi

Veteran

Pretty much what Diana said Clumsy, bump toe into wall (in my narrow bathroom, in that case). Does it for me. I wonder if 99% of toe breakages occur with little pinky toe.

11 years ago

DonnaF

Veteran

Y'all had me hyperventilating as I read the painful tales of woe, rather painful tales of toe. I must have been very lucky when I dropped a Pyrex pan on my toe, as it gave me a bad bruise that lasted for nine or more months, but not a break as I had no swelling. From now on, I will wear my mom's cast-off fake Croc clogs around the house with pride, as there are many times that I would have otherwise jammed my toe on a door frame or otherwise stubbed them. And other than being swimsuit averse, I guess there are other reasons I should stay away from the beach!

11 years ago

Tina

Veteran

Mine broke as I was racing to the basement door amid tables and chairs at a New Years party. I was on my way there because we were playing some sort of game, Gestures or something. I rammed my middle toe into a chair and I just kept on going. It throbbed the rest if the evening. That night after the guests left I walked into the laundry room and just bumped my foot on an empty pizza box - oh the pain! That's when I knew I had broken my poor toe:-(. I was vigilant about wearing running shoes for weeks and I made sure everyone stayed several feet away from my foot. That was painful!

11 years ago

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