You can totally see it in the photo.
My Mom is standing next to my two sons at the Oregon coast. Because it was warm that day, she is wearing flip flops. And right there in the picture, clear as a bell, you can see how the second toes on each of her feet are sitting on top of her big toes.
I had thought I was seeing things when I first noticed her toes criss-crossing onto the other ones. To be honest with you, it was pretty much creeping me out to see her toes looking so odd. But now I had photogenic proof of her unusual-looking piggies.
The next time she came to visit me, I noticed she had Band-Aids on both feet holding the wandering toes in place. I decided to ask her about it and she breezily brushed it all aside, saying that yes, her toes were crossing over each other but it didn’t hurt at all and she just used Band-Aids now and then to keep everyone in place.
Later that day, I tried to manually make my second toe sit on top of my big toe. Not an easy feat, no pun intended. And not exactly pain-free either.
Since my Mom was obviously not concerned about it and hadn’t seemed to have spoken with her doctor about it either, I decided to take matters into my own hands and bring up trusty old Google on my computer. I typed in “toes crossing over”, thinking that I wouldn’t get any matches at all. Instead, I got thousands.
In fact, the first website that popped up even gives my Mom’s toe ailment a name: Crossover Toe. And it included a ton of information and even some illustrations of exactly what I saw in the photo and in person too.
In case you are curious, here is the link:
http://www.footphysicians.com/footankleinfo/crossover.htm
As the article explains, Crossover Toe is a progressive and common condition where slowly the second toe begins to move and eventually sit atop the big toe. According to the information, if caught in the early stages it can be treated. But from what I can gather, my Mom’s symptoms are severe enough that she is probably out of luck at this point. And she is apparently lucky to be pain-free. From the article, it sounds like for most people Crossover Toe typically causes a lot of discomfort.
I honestly had no idea this was a common thing. Do you or anyone you know have Crossover Toe? If so, what have you done to treat it, if anything? I’m hoping to gently bring it up with my Mom again at some point to see if maybe there is something that she can do to reverse it, so I’d welcome any ideas you might have.