I have developed hammer toe shortly after experiencing knee problems. I went to one visit to a podiatrist and he inserted a pad under the ball of the foot in my running shoe. THis helped for a while. I now have a more severe case of mallet toe and it looks like it is beginning to affect the third toe. I have numbness in my big toe from nerve damaged caused by a herniated l4-l5 disc. I had foot drop which caused slapping of the foot and I don't seem to experience that as much as in the past.

The question now is, I sometimes feel a very sharp pain in the area where the toe meets the top of the foot. This causes a shooting paindown to the end of the toes. I can't tell which toe is causing the pain to begin with (probably the mallet toe) I want to know if the gel toe pads will help. I run about 5-6 miles a day at about a 8:30 pace. I don't want to stop. Any help would be appreciated.