I'm a 23 yr old female. About 1 year ago I woke up in the morning with a pain in the ball of my foot under the big toe. I was trying to remember if I had bumped into anything or stubbed my toe, but I didn't. As the day went on the pain got worse and worse to the point where I was crying and couldn't walk. I was out of my home state visiting someone so I did not have my doctor to go to. I looked up online and saw that my symptoms seemed to be related to gout. I know I don't fit the typical age profile of someone with gout. The pain seemed to go down quite a bit the next day. I was able to walk but only on the outside of the foot. By day 3 my foot was pretty much back to normal.

Several months later I started running. I would sometimes notice a tight pain in the same area but the pain was not intense at all and it just would go away after resting for a bit.

Now it is over a year later and I have started running almost every day. I am noticing the pain again in the ball of the big toe and it is also swollen.

Now my question is, if I did have gout before, is this pain related to that? Could there be damage to my ligaments? Or is this Sesamoiditis? Just curious if anyone has had a similar situation?