Many causes of pain in the foot are due to injuries. This is due to fractures, bruises, sprains, and muscle strains of the foot. Usually when fibers tear it is because the ligaments are overstretched. Ligaments are important because if they are too tight or too loose they can cause pain in the foot. There are many examples of this. Achilles tendonitis is a condition when there is injury of the tendon of the back of the heel on the foot. Plantar fasciitis is the inflammation of the sole of the foot, and bony spurs that come out of the side of the heel make walking very painful. The way shoes are laced can be important for preventing specific problems. Laces should always be loosened before putting shoes on. People with narrow feet should buy shoes with eyelets farther away from the tongue than people with wider feet. This makes for a tighter fit for narrower feet and looser for wider. If, after tying the shoe, less than an inch of tongue shows, then the shoes are probably too wide. Tightness should be adjusted both at the top of the shoe and at the bottom. Where high arches cause pain, eyelets should be skipped to relieve pressure. Most (young) women like to look stylish and wear a shoe with a medium to high heel. The problem with high heels is that your bodyweight is not evenly distributed across the underside of the foot, but rather 80% of your weight pushes down on only one area of the foot, the forefoot area. i.e. the balls of your feet. This is totally unnatural and before long the entire forefoot structure collapses, leading to constant pressure and friction in the ball of the foot. The body reacts and builds up thick layers of callous in this area which in turn leads to a burning sensation under the foot. The sharp pain in foot when walking can be very frustrating as it limits your mobility and your weight carrying capacity. Feet, which are small as compared to the rest of the body, take an extraordinary amount of stress during walking. This stress is 50% greater than the stress while you are standing stationary. It has been calculated that on an average, a person takes approximately 10,000 steps during the course of a day. It is a wonder that everyone doesn't suffer sharp pain in foot every day in his or her life. The pain can be because of a number of causes which are presented below. The problem can further be avoided in the future by padding around the ball of your foot to take pressure off of it. Get a piece of felt or foam rubber (try using a Dr. Scholl's heel pad, for example). It should be 1/4" thick and about 2" square. Cut a shallow "U" out of the pad so that it fits snugly behind (not over) the ball of your foot. Behind, incidentally, means on the heel side, not the toe side. The pad should fit right behind the painful area. Tape the padding to your foot and wear it in your daytime shoes as well as your running shoes. Sport activities contribute significantly to side of foot pain with athletics and gymnastics being top of the list. There are two distinctive fractures than can cause intense side of foot pain and these are March fractures and Stress fractures. March fractures result from undertaking vigorous physical activity without the correct warm up procedures or when a person undertakes extreme exercise outside of their normal everyday activities. Stress fractures normally result from repetitive and excessive strain over a given period of time. From the onset of any side of foot pain , first treatment is to simply remember RICE. This stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation. A human foot is a complex formation of 26 bones. Generally the feet are the basis of mainly all physical movements and activities. When a person suffers from foot pain , it maybe a sign that there is could be wrong with any of the inside structure of the foot or with the condition of the foot as it interacts to outside factors, like shoes and walking grounds. On the other hand an injury to the bones and joints of the foot can also be factors that caused this kind of pain. Commonly slight foot pain can react to simple home medication causing pain to drop.