Can I use a bone stimulator for a broken toe?

Yesterday, I was doing a consultation with an athlete who broke one of her toes when she accidentally kicked a piece of furniture.

If you fracture your toe, and you just run and ignore it, it can turn into a painful nonunion (non-healed fracture). 

As a runner, you want to speed the healing as much as possible. One of the ways to stimulate fracture healing is with a thing called a bone stimulator. 

This particular athlete actually happened to already have a bone stimulator. Her question was pretty obvious:

“Can I just use that bone stimulator for this broken toe since it's a different kind of fracture?”

Well, that's what we're talking about today on the doc on the run podcast.