Thanks so much for your reply Ginnie! So you basically pushed past the pain and continued to move and use the toes as much as possible? Do you have bone spurs/osteophytes? I'm amazed you have minimal pain because for me they are astoundingly my most painful joints (and ALL the other ones hurt quite a bit) for such a small part of the body I guess its because 50% of the body weight is centered on each big toe during push off.

I have heard that if you're able to put up with the pain of aggressive arthritis long enough (a few years usually), eventually the body adjusts and experiences much less (or even no) pain even if there is no cartilage left. I'm not sure how much this theory is rooted in fact vs anecdotal evidence though.