Foot Stress Fracture Healing Time: [Symptoms & Best Treatment]

How Long is Stress Fracture Healing Time?

• Generally stress fractures are mostly impacted by how much pressure you can keep off the bones.
• If it is an area that you can keep pressure off of very easily, then you should do very well, almost within a few weeks.

This is the approximate timeline we see:

• 50% healed in 6 weeks.
• 75% healed in 12 weeks.
• 95% healed in 6 months.

With proper orthotics and shoes you can feel better almost immediately and have minimal pain while creating less future damage.

This is really the way to go, you need to correct the biomechanics that have caused the injury.

Foot Stress Fracture Symptoms:

Foot stress fracture symptoms include a deep aching pain.

• Numbness in site.
• Burning at the site.
• Tingling at the site.
• Increased aching with more pain.
• Increased tenderness with pain.

Foot Stress Fracture Causes:

• Causes of foot stress fracture include increased cyclical loading of the foot metatarsals.
• This is due to too much pressure too quickly.
• This can also be related to a lack of vitamin D.

Speed Up Stress Fracture Healing Time:

Studies show that supplements can really help, but the single most practical thing is simply letting the bone heal with pressure off of it. This can sometimes be done very easily while you can keep working and keeping pressure off of your feet.

• Take vitamin D supplements. This will increase your bone deposition and calcium absorption.
• Get vitamin D through getting good sunlight.
• Take calcium supplements. This will allow you to build bone.
• Offload the foot, any pressure at all will make healing much longer.
• Identify the stress fracture as early as possible. The longer you walk or run on it, the longer it will take to overcome the stress fracture.
• Stop smoking! This is the single biggest thing that can inhibit your healing.
• Elevate your foot and Ice it for 15-20 minutes at a time.
• Check with your Podiatrist ASAP to get it imaged by an X-ray.

Best Shoes for Stress Fractures:

• The best shoes for your stress fracture are any shoes that are still in the heel and stiff through the sole.
• This means shoes that are not extremely flexible.
• This means shoes that you can’t collapse the sides.
• This is the only true benefit of a surgical shoe, it is simply stiff through the sole and it does not bend.
• So don’t worry about spending $200, you can get something affordable as long as it only bends through the big toe and not the rest of the sole of the shoe.
• So the two main criteria are: stiff sole and a stiff heel.
• Bonus criteria are: they fit an orthotic and extremely well fitting.

Stress Fracture Healing Time Advanced Options(More Medical):

• If you are in a real hurry- see if you can get approved for a bone stimulation.  These are very expensive, but have been show to increase healing time by 35-50%.
• Bone stimulators are usually only approved if you have systemic problems or a smoker.
• Generally these don’t make a whole lot of sense unless you are in a very high risk situation.
• Keep your white blood cells between 4,500–10,000 or 4.5–10 x 10⁹/liter. This means don’t be sick due to any other type of illness. Or it will be slower with immune suppressants.
• Keep your nutrition levels high. Healing time is aided by keeping your serum albumin at least over 3 g/dL.

There are 4 common sites for a stress fracture!

Most Common To Least Common:

1)The 2nd, 3rd and 4th metatarsals: These can take between 3-4 weeks at the minimum in an offloading boot or cast!

2)5th Metatarsal: The Jones Fracture: This is a monster. It can take between 6-8 weeks on average. Then even with X-ray it might not be healing.

• Check our surgery explanation guide: With surgery 4 weeks is possible!

3)Navicular Bone: This one means trouble. This will also be about 6-8 weeks of casting or boot wearing.

4) Tibial Stress Fracture: This is tough to answer because different treatments will be performed based on the X-ray. But you are looking at the longest healing time with this one.