----- Original Message -----
>  I was getting a sharp pain
> when I put any weight on the ball of my foot, so I've been trying to avoid
> doing that, and now the limping has made my leg & hip hurt.

Venturing a guess here that it may be a Morton's neuroma, which is somewhat
common to runners and distance walkers.  (But, of course, stress fractures
are too.)  Can you isolate the origin of the pain to an area at the base of
the second toe (associated w/ a neuroma)?  If so, get an insert (metatarsal
type) for your shoe which will relieve some of the pressure on the ball of
your foot.  You'll limp a little less while buying yourself some time to
find an appropriate doctor.

However, even if the pain originates at/near the base of the second toe, it
may not be a neuroma proper, but rather just inflammation of the nerve due
to bruising/repetitive stress.  If that's the case, it's possible that it
will resolve on its own, but it may take a few months with the help of a
little babying by altering your step/gait/stride along with an insert and
cutting back on your miles.  That was the situation I had summer before last
when I was pounding down a lot of weekly miles. Oh, and make sure you have
the appropriate kind of shoe if you are a pronator or supinator (aka
overpronator and underpronator), or if you're neutral.  Can make a big
difference to your foot.

Why don't you visit several of the local health food stores, look at the
bulletin board, and ask about "friendly" doctors?  That's how I found a
holistic MD.  I haven't seen her since I went paleo (and she's a
vegetarian), but at least she's non-threatening and seems pretty open to
discussing alternative ideas. When I visited my (now ex-) cardiologist in
early Nov., I told the nurse practitioner interviewer that I eat a paleo
diet.  She dutifully wrote it down on the chart for the doctor to see, but
neither one of them ever bothered to ask me what in the world a paleo diet
is.  They're so entrenched in allopathic pill-pushing that I'm sure they
didn't know......and equally sure they just didn't give a ****  what I eat
or don't eat.  Perhaps this is an over-generalization based on my
experiences alone, but traditional doctors don't seem to place much
importance on or take an interest in diet/nutrition.

Good luck, Kathy.  Let us know how it goes.

Theola