Why is my second toe so long?

Having a long second toe is not a deformity. The long bone connected to the second toe is the longest bone in the foot. It's natural that this toe sometimes sticks out further than the others.

What does it mean when your second toe is longer than your big?

A Morton's toe otherwise called Morton's foot or Greek foot or Royal toe is characterized by a longer second toe. This is because the first metatarsal, behind the big toe, is short compared to the second metatarsal, next to it.

How rare is a Morton's toe?

Prevalence. Morton's foot affects approximately 22% of the population. This is in contrast to 69% of the population with Egyptian foot, which is characterized by the big toe being the longest. Squared foot is less common, with approximately 9% of the population with the same length of the great and second toe.

What race has Morton's toe?

If you observe the feet of statues from ancient Greece, you will quickly see that they all had what is called a 'Greek foot'; that is, when the second toe is larger than the big toe. This condition is medically known as the Morton's toe, and is ubiquitous in every form of art in ancient Greece.

Is Morton's toe a disability?

Do you know that patients with untreated Morton's Neuroma can develop a lifelong disability? According to the laws of United States, patients with chronic cases of this physical condition can apply for disability benefits on account on their incapability to walk and therefore, earn a living for themselves.

Why is my second toe longer than my first?

Is Morton's toe good?

The Basics --- If your second toe is longer than your big toe, you're in good company. One in five people have Morton's Toe, as it is called, and while it's no cause for alarm, it can lead to biomechanical problems that result in forefoot pain, plantar fasciitis and stress fractures.

What is the perfect foot shape?

A normal arch is the most common and the most desirable of foot shapes, but as you age and maybe put on a few pounds, that normal arch could begin to flatten out.

Can Morton's toe be corrected?

Exploring Surgical Correction

If Morton's toe is causing significant problems, and a change in footwear isn't enough, a foot surgeon may perform a surgery that involves shortening the second metatarsal bone.

Can I get my second toe shortened?

Long toes can be surgically shortened. Depending on the severity and length of the toe, there are several methods to surgically correct shorten a toe. In general, the surgery involves removing a portion of the bone at the contracted joint, to realign the toe.

Is longer second toe dominant or recessive?

According to the theory that the trait involves two alleles and a single locus, with the allele for longer second toe dominant to the one for longer hallux, subjects with a longer hallux are homozygous for the recessive allele.

Is Morton's toe genetic?

Undoubtedly, Morton's toe is genetically inherited, but deviation from the Mendelian model was evident that its inheritance does not conform to the simple dominant-recessive fashion. It must be noted that the appearance of large frequencies of a trait in a population does not make it dominant.

Are long toes beneficial?

Long toes provide increased contact with the ground allowing the push that is needed in sprinting. Long distance running does not require acceleration throughout and having shorter toes decreases the contact and, therefore, the energy expelled.

What percent of the population has a longer second toe?

It's also very common. A study of American college students found that 42.2 percent had longer second toes (45.7 percent of men and 40.3 percent of women). Morton's toe is hereditary, like most features of your bone structure. Research suggests that Morton's toe may even be an advantage in athletics.

Is it better to have long or short toes?

"Longer toes require muscles to do more work, and exert stronger forces to maintain stability, compared to shorter toes," said University of Calgary anthropologist Campbell Rolian. "So long as we were engaged in substantial amounts of running, natural selection would favor individuals with shorter toes."

Does Morton's toe affect running?

Running Pain Morton'S Toe After or During Running could be caused by your biomechanical running posture, your running footwear or it may be caused by an underlying condition. This assessment is specifically to address these issues both reactively and as a preventative measure to avoid long term injury.

What is a Roman foot?

Definition of Roman foot

: an ancient Roman unit of length equal to 11.64 English inches.

What is Greek toe?

Greek foot is when the second toe seems longer than the big toe. It's very common: some people just have this foot shape and others don't. The Greek foot is aptly named, as 46% of participants in a study conducted throughout Greece had this morphological feature, which affects only 5% of the world's population.

What does your toes say about your personality?

There's no evidence to prove that ancestry determines the shape of your foot. Human feet are highly individual. Your right foot and your left foot aren't even identical. The angle of your toe descent or the length of your second toe doesn't reveal either your heritage or your personality traits.

What causes Morton's toe?

Factors that appear to contribute to Morton's neuroma include: High heels. Wearing high-heeled shoes or shoes that are tight or ill fitting can place extra pressure on your toes and the ball of your foot.

What causes Morton's foot?

Morton's neuroma is often caused by shoes that are too tight or that have high heels. These shoes can cause the nerves in your feet to become compressed or irritated. The irritated nerve thickens and gradually becomes more painful as a result of the pressure on it.

Which toe is the most important?

Do longer feet make you faster?

In both studies, they also found that longer forefoot bones correlated with faster running speeds among the trained runners, although here the studies' findings diverged: endurance runners who reported faster 5K times had longer big toe forefoot bones, whereas sprinters who reported faster 100 meter times had longer ...

Do feet get bigger from running?

There's a grain of truth to that—increased blood flow and swelling during and after exercise do make your feet expand, so your running shoes tend to be larger.

What nationality has longer second toe?

Greek toes: your feet are on fire

They have Greek foot, also known as “flame foot”, where the second toe is longer than the rest. One study on the incidence of the Greek type of foot shows that it's a common trait in the Greek population.

Is second toe longer hereditary?

Having studied 37 families, I have shown3 that a long second toe is inherited dominantly but with impaired penetrance. The pedigree here presented demonstrates a short metatarsal I combined with a long second toe through three generations.