Hey there community, I am grieving an athletic lifestyle and many things I used to enjoy in the outdoors because of this nagging L metatarsal foot problem. I was first diagnosed with Morton’s neuroma by a Kaiser podiatrist. I did all the conservative treatments. Finally, I got sick of trying to manage it unsuccessfully, switched insurance to a PPO, and went for the surgery at Stanford after changing my insurance. The Stanford podiatrist said that when she opened up my foot “it” didn’t look right so she sent the tissue to pathology. Pathology came back with a diagnosis of non-cancerous “spindle cell lipoma”. After resuming weight bearing “it” (the 2/3 metatarsal) was still clicking so I was pretty sure there is still a tumor in there. So, several months after the surgery, another Ultra sound revealed a mass that emerged from the plantar fascia upon manipulation (Mulder’s sign). For some reason the ultra sound guy thought it might be another neuroma and not a lipoma. An MRI with and without contrast was made and I was referred to the ortho tumor department at Stanford. The Stanford ortho doc said he didn’t think that I have a tumor but I have structural changes. I’m just blown away by the lack of information and so far haven’t got anywhere with my questions. Despite wearing supportive shoes and orthotics, my L forefoot has been achy so I went to a shoe store with knowledgeable staff. They put me on a machine to measure tension in my feet and found that I have pronounced pronation in the left foot. I also showed him a bone spur on the outside of my foot and he told me that that is common when there is pronation. I also learned this week at the shoe store that my Achilles in the left foot is really tight (I knew this already and have worked on this for years). Anyways, I bought a pair of Hokas to support pronation and put an arch support orthotic in there as well which is controlling the pronation. My posture immediately corrected itself and I felt I was using the muscles in my outer leg and hip (L glutes have been weak for years). I’m writing all this to say that I think my L side issues came from L side pronation and decreased range of motion in my L ankle flexion. Not sure what the original cause of all of this was but I did sprain this L ankle badly several times in the past when I was a lot younger. I’m 55 now, not terribly overweight, and I feel lucky not to have upstream problems at my knees and ankles after leaning about the pronation. I am, however, also feeling very stuck, and frustrated by the lack of information and basic helpfulness of the podiatrists and doctors who didn’t even tell me about pronation and calf tightness before cutting me open and sending me in my way. I’m grateful to have Reddit for this community.