Sesamoiditis from Pickleball, What is it?

Ball of your foot hurt? Not getting better? You could have an overuse pickleball foot injury to your sesamoid bones, tiny circular bones in the ball of your foot that allow ligaments to move between your foot and big toes.

You might also experience pain in this area when doing lunging movements.

I played through this injury for months, expecting it to just get better on it’s own, but I never gave it a rest. And it got worse.

How to manage sesamoiditis from pickleball

I’ve finally been to the orthopedist and he has confirmed that the primary remedy is rest. Not something you want to hear when you have been playing daily or nearly daily for years.

At this writing, I’ve been off the court for almost 4 weeks. It’s improved, but there’s still a lot of pain and I’m nowhere near ready for impact. If it goes a couple more weeks then at the doctor’s advice, I’ll need to do some imaging to see if there’s a fracture.

Other than rest, immobilization is the other healing strategy. I purchased a carbon fiber insole and I’ve been using that in my shoe to keep me from flexing the big toe joint. There are splints available too, but the rigid shoe plate has been working so far.

What’s the lesson?

Rest and recover. Listen to my body. If an injury is nagging for weeks, give it a rest. Pickleball will be there when I get better.

The break has given me an opportunity to do other things with my time and energy that I wasn’t doing when playing pickleball most evenings and weekends. That is the gift of the injury.

It’s also given me a renewed perspective on my relationship with pickleball, but that’s for another post.

If you suspect sesamoiditis, I’d suggest resting it in the early stages, rather than trying to play through it like me. Looks like this pickleball injury could sideline me for 2 months or more.

Have you dealt with this? What’s your experience? Comment below…