Mystery foot pain

I need help trying to figure out what is wrong with my foot. I’ve had this issue since January 2011 and there was no injury that caused this – it just came out of nowhere. I went shoe shopping and bought a pair of shoes but when I got home, I felt this weird sensation in the lateral part of right heel. It feels like there is a shoe lace or some foreign object in my shoe that my foot rubs against, but there really is nothing there. This started out as just a nuisance, then became uncomfortable, then became painful. When it became painful, I started hurting mostly on the lateral part of my foot, anywhere from my heel bone to my pinkie toe. The pain differed depending on which shoe I wore. Some shoes hurt more than others. Some shoes hurt in one place, while other shoes hurt in another place. It also hurts around the lateral malleolus (outside bump at my ankle) and along the top of my foot near the talus (where the foot and ankle are connected).

This problem only occurs when I wear shoes – but it occurs with every pair of shoes I wear. Even when I wear sandals, I have this problem. It feels like the top of my foot gets pressed up against the top of my shoe as does the lateral malleolus against the side of my shoe. So any footwear that presses against the top/side of my foot triggers this. I’ve tried everything conservative and nothing worked. Finally, I just recently had surgery. I was diagnosed with having calcaneal varus (my heel bone was misaligned and rotated inward). X-rays showed my heel bone made an angle of 21 degrees with my foot (it was explained to me that the average angle is between 5 and 7 degrees). Because of this, I have a high arch and it appeared that I was walking more on the outside of my foot. This sounded to me like it might be what was wrong.

But 9 days following the surgery, I’m worried about whether it was successful or not. They did an osteotomy to align the bones in my foot. This should decrease the angle, reduce the height of my arch (I had a very high arch), and get me to walk on my foot properly instead of on the outside of my foot. But what troubles me is that I still feel many of the same sensations that were causing my issues prior to the surgery. One of the main things I still feel is the sensation that there is a shoe lace in between my foot and my cast. I feel it mostly along the area on the bottom of my foot where the bottom of my foot begins to curve upward at the base of my Achilles tendon. I feel like when I press this curved area against the cast, I feel the “shoe lace”. The doctor thought I was feeling a seam in the cast and it does feel like that. But the sensation comes from inside my foot, and not my skin pressed against the cast. It almost feels like my heel sits too far back so that the bottom of my heel is being pressed against the back of the cast instead of the bottom of the cast. But it’s this sensation of a shoe lace there that worries me since this sensation is what began all of my troubles.

Also, I feel like my malleolus and the top of my foot are pressed too hard against the cast. Before the surgery, when I wore shoes, I would feel like these 2 areas were pressed against my shoe in my bad foot, but my good foot sat nice and comfortably inside the shoe and was not pressed against the side/top of my shoe. This is something I felt prior to surgery and something I still feel inside my cast so I’m worried. I know my foot needs time to heal, but I feel 2 sensations that caused me lots of my problems and I’m worried that my surgery did not help my underlying issue.

Doctors said I did not have plantar fascia – my pain was only when I wore shoes. So I was fine first thing in the morning because I had yet to put a shoe on. Driving a car would be very uncomfortable so I would often drive barefoot. My gut feeling tells me my problem has something to do with my foot rubbing against my shoe. I was hoping this surgery would correct my misalignment and resolve my issue, but I’m not happy that these 2 troublesome sensations still exist.

Another thing – when I would a wear a sock and I would tug at the lower back corner near my heel, I would get the shoe lace sensation in my bad foot as if I was pulling on a tendon. This “tendon” I would feel being pulled would be just along the inside of my malleolus. But nothing showed up on any film and the doctor didn’t seem to see anything when he did the surgery. So why would I feel something being tugged underneath my skin when I would pull on my sock?

What is wrong with my foot????????????????????????????

Someone please tell me they have the exact same issue and did something to fix it. I would give anything to find what’s wrong and how to fix this.