I am a ballroom dancer. I'm on high heels most of the time. For the last several months, I have the feeling that there is a rock inside the bottom of my right foot between the 3rd and 4th toes. There is no actual bump or hard spot. Normally I can only feel it after I have been dancing in my heels for at least an hour. At first I thought it was simply a toe cramp, since with shoes on, that's how it feels. I would rub the toes, flex them, and it would go away. This last week (right before a competition) I couldn't get the pain to go away even with the rubbing and this morning I woke up with the feeling in the bottom of my foot already. I noticed during the last practice that when I flexed my toes after the worst pain, that I seemed to feel something crack, and then the pain would become less. My real question is whether there is something I can do over the next few days--any type of shoe insert (I already have an arch orthotic from the dr.), binding of toes, binding of foot, ANYTHING AT ALL that will allow me to make it through the competition still dancing at full power?

Thanks!

Those are the classical indications of Morton's Neuroma. That includes the location, the wearing of high heels and even the crack sound (which is called Mulder's Sign). It results when the nerve is irritated, and so grows and gets wider and wider.

Sorry to say, but if that is what you have, it will get worse and worse until you need surgery - unless you give up the heels and the activity that continues to irritate and inflame the nerve that's in between those toes.

For the very short term, you might try what I invented for myself: spread those toes open by taping the 3rd toe to the 2nd.