Do Bunions Hurt? Yes, Here’s Why I Had Surgery to Correct Them
Key takeaways:
A bunion looks like a bony bump at the base of the big toe.
Bunions can cause the big toe to lean toward the other toes. This often leads to pain and difficulty wearing certain shoes.
Three people who have dealt with bunions describe what it felt like and why they turned to surgery to correct the issue.
Are bunions having a moment? The star of season 28 of “The Bachelor” has them. Celebrities including Jennifer Lopez and Naomi Campbell often unintentionally flaunt their bunions on the red carpet. The podiatrist known on TikTok as FootDocDana shares clips about fake bunion repair devices and minimally invasive bunionectomies with her 2.3 million followers. And four seasons of TLC’s “My Feet Are Killing Me” are currently available for streaming.
A bunion forms when the big toe is pushed toward the second toe. The misalignment aggravates the joint on the big toe, often causing it to swell and form a bump. The area can also get inflamed and painful.
Bunions are common: About a third of American adults have them. Women are more likely to have them than men. Wearing ight, narrow shoes can worsen bunion symptoms. That's why some people link the condition with high heels.
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Bunions do not go away on their own. Nonsurgical treatments include using a splint to straighten the big toe, putting a spacer between the big toe and the second toe, and using medical tape to straighten the toes. These approaches can relieve pressure on the bunion and lessen pain, but they won’t correct the shifts in the bone. Surgery can correct the deformity and significantly reduce bunion pain.
GoodRX Health asked three people who have had bunions what the condition feels like and how they dealt with it.
Bunion surgery helped an endurance athlete get back to running
Paul Wilson recently completed a 55-mile run to celebrate his 55th birthday. He couldn’t have done that 5 years ago, when a bunion on his left foot was so painful he had trouble sleeping. But Paul had corrective surgery in 2020, and he’s been pain-free ever since.
“I’m trying to get the word out and share my story,” says Paul, who lives near Jacksonville, Florida. “I didn’t know how many people had bunions.”
Paul had always had a bump protruding from the side of his big toe. But he didn’t have a name for it until he saw the same bump on both of his grandmother’s feet.
“You think of it as an older person’s deformity,” he says.
The bunion didn’t cause Paul pain when he was young. So following a doctor’s advice, he monitored the bunion’s size as he got older.
As the years passed, the bunion grew, but it never slowed him down. An endurance athlete, Paul ran marathons, took part in Ironman competitions, and kept up with his three active sons.
Then, 5 years ago, the bunion finally caught up with him. The pain, he says, was sometimes a 9 on a 10-point scale. Some pairs of shoes, including his running shoes, exacerbated the pain. But Paul didn’t want to give up endurance sports, so at one point, he altered his running shoes, cutting out a piece of the mesh around his big toe to lessen the compression. Eventually, he couldn’t run at all.
“I gave in to the fact that I was never going to run again,” he says.
Then, Paul learned about a new type of bunionectomy, in which the deviant bone is rotated into its normal position and secured in place with titanium plating. While recovery times vary, many people who have the surgery can walk in a boot and return to light activities after 4 to 6 weeks. After 6 to 8 weeks, people can typically transition to regular shoes, with full recovery taking about 4 to 6 months.
Paul scheduled the procedure with a surgeon he knew he could trust — the same one who’d operated on his Achilles tendon years earlier. When Paul woke up after the surgery, his pain was a 4 out of 10, he remembers. About 2 months later, he was running with zero pain.
“I want people to know that, within months, you can go back to doing things you enjoy,” Paul says.
Worsening foot pain made a cattle farmer seek help
April Leonard says she had bunions for as long as she can remember. But they didn’t cause her pain or discomfort. “I just thought, ‘Well, that’s the way my feet are shaped,’” says April, who’s 57 and lives in Eldon, Missouri.
April became a marathon runner, completing races in Chicago, London, Berlin, and New York. But about 7 years ago, as she trained for another race, she felt the first twinges of discomfort.
“I could feel soreness, and it was getting worse,” says April, who shared her bunion story on the show “The Doctors” in 2021. ”It is very difficult to run greater distances as it is, much less when you are in discomfort.”
The pain caused by the bunions began to affect April’s work and home life. She and her husband own cattle farms that have about 85 mama cows and 45 calves, and she needed to be on her feet all day. As her discomfort increased and her ability to work decreased, her husband had twice as much work to do.
“Each morning begins with hand feeding, herding, playing with the calves. And then, you throw in a couple of horses, some chickens, dogs and cats,” she says. “There’s never a dull moment.”
April knew surgery was the best way to address the problem, but she was hesitant.
“My cousin had a bunionectomy 40 years ago, and it was a disaster,” she says.
Still, she knew she had to do something. The bunion on her right foot had become more pronounced. “I knew that the joint would only begin to deteriorate the older I became,” she says, adding that her toes had also started bending toward the center of her foot.
Then, she learned about the new approach to bunionectomy using titanium plating.
First, she had the procedure on her left foot in 2017. In 2021, she had the procedure done on her right foot. She left the hospital after both surgeries wearing a walking boot. After the second one, she was running again within months.
“I only regret waiting as long as I did to get this corrected,” she says. “In the 7 years that have passed [since the first surgery], there’s been no joint damage due to arthritis. And my balance and muscle stamina is strong. I can wear any of my shoes — heels, boots, sandals — without pain or bizarre-shaped feet that made me self-conscious.”
A tennis player wanted to feel better on her toes
Jo Elizabeth Dockins’ mother had bunions on both feet, so she wasn’t surprised when she first noticed she had them, too. For more than 15 years, Jo lived with bunion pain, managing the discomfort with different shoe inserts. She still played in multiple tennis leagues and, at least for a while, could wear cute shoes.
But that changed about 5 years ago. When she played tennis, she’d have to stop the game and loosen her footwear because of bunion pain — using the excuse that she had to tie her shoes. When she was planning her wedding, her husband-to-be offered to buy her a pair of Christian Louboutin heels, luxury shoes known for their red soles, for the big day. But she couldn’t find a pair that fit around her bunions.
![“You think of it as an older person’s deformity.” — Paul “[Bunions] can be debilitating.” — Jo Elizabeth Dockins](http://www.grxstatic.com/4f3rgqwzdznj/aKiFq79n9iIRyqpXVQ4V2/13824ca39b2ee1f470e984edf670efab/patient_stories_feel_bunions_quote_3.png?format=png&auto=webp&width=704)
Jo couldn’t even play the piano at length, because it pained her to press the pedals. Still, she didn’t choose to address the problem until she noticed that a beloved pair of leather mules were becoming misshapen.
“They were my favorite shoes, and they were getting ruined,” says Jo, who’s now 60 and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The bunion [on the right foot] was making a hole in my favorite shoes.”
Jo had Lapiplasty surgery on her right foot, then, about 2 months later, had the same procedure on her left foot. In the first few weeks of her recovery, she used a knee scooter to get around. Four weeks after her second surgery, she wore a walking boot for a sightseeing trip to New York’s Central Park.
Now, Jo’s back on the tennis court, and she says her opponents have noticed her game improve.
“When you have something like [bunions], people might think, ‘Oh, it’s cosmetic. It’s ugly so you don’t want to be in flip flops.’ But that’s not it,” she says. “[Bunions] can be debilitating.”
Frequently asked questions
People often describe bunion pain as a sharp or dull discomfort around the big toe joint. Pressure on the joint from shoes can make it worse.
Tight or ill-fitting shoes, particularly high heels and those with pointed toes, can cause bunion pain to flare.
You can alleviate bunion pain with at-home strategies like wearing comfortable shoes with a wide toe box, using protective padding or inserts, applying ice packs to reduce inflammation, taking over-the-counter pain relievers, and trying stretching exercises.
If you have bunions, you can manage the discomfort by wearing footwear with a wide toe box or using pads in your shoes. If the pain is severe, you may need to seek medical intervention, such as bunion surgery.
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