A stress fracture of the navicular within the feet are not a common stress fracture but can be quite limiting for an athlete if this happens. The stress fracture is really an too much use injury that comes about to bone as a result of greater physical activity levels. The navicular within the foot is positioned just anterior to the ankle joint at the top of the mid-foot (arch) of the foot. Due to the placement that the navicular bone is at, it will get the subject of a lot of forces and when the bone isn't adjusted to that strain, then a stress fracture may arise. Bone isn't a solid firm structure. Bone is a dynamic living framework and is always updating itself with new bone tissue and adapting to forces which get put on it. With athletic activity more load is placed on all bones, however the bones adapt and produce new bone cellular material within the bone in response to those loads. However, if those loads grow too soon and the bone is not given time to adapt to those loads, then a navicular stress fracture could come about. Due to the place of the navicular bone, excessive forces could also be increased on account of problems with the dysfunction with the foot.
The navicular stress fracture is considered a high risk stress fracture as there could be long term issues with the blood supply to the navicular in the long run if it's not handled appropriately. The pain typically occurs gradually and will increase with an increase of activity. The pain is typically towards the top of the mid-foot (arch), just anterior to the ankle joint. A distinctive sign is pain over what gets named the ‘N’ spot, which is spot pain on palpation right on the navicular. Imaging for example x-rays or perhaps an MRI may be used to confirm the detection, however it will take a few weeks before it shows up on an x-ray.
When a navicular stress fracture may be clinically diagnosed, you really should halt all sport activity and when the pain sensation is serious enough get into a moon boot or walking splint for up to 4 weeks. This really is regarded as essential due to the potential for complications with a navicular stress fracture. You should use the pain to the ‘N’ spot to be able to monitor improvement. Not until finally that has resolved can you begin to with increased loaded exercises. Foot supports really should likely to end up made use of early as they possibly can help lessen any abnormal loads which might be going through the navicular bone in addition to support the arch of the foot. An important portion of the treatment methods are the progressing development of activity amounts. If that is completed too rapidly, then there's a very high probability that it is going to happen once again, and you'll have to go through the entire process just as before. Exercise amounts need to be extremely little by little increased. When much more load is put about the navicular bone, it needs time for you to get used to that force previous to any more higher force is put on the bone.