so my few cents. Won't go into the med argument. But you likely have no chance that they'll (medical help) help you solve the cycling issue.
If you believe the 'condition' is now persistent and an injury, then maybe consider treatment.
if you don't think it's persistent, then you need to adjust your cycling to remedy the issue - if you want to use 'clipless'.
If you want an 'intermediate' step between open platform and clipless - consider adding oldschool toeclips, without the straps, for a while.
There are slight wider toeclips which are toe hold only - no straps, worth cosnidering.
Otherwise, if you want to progress to clipless - clipless requires much more exacting positioning of everything, to work properly for a rider.
Once a rider gets into multi-hour rides, the setup becomes more critical.
I won't go into my setup methods right now... and there's an adjustment to riding technique - gearing choice to be made when dealing with more overall weight.
I'd start with toe clips and see how that works.
Just a quick tip...
With most platform pedals, if you ride with your feet in a consistent position on them... Look at the soles of your shoes. They should/might show the pedal cage marks...
That will give you the current foot position on your current pedals/shoes. Hold your shoes to the pedals, to match those marks, with the pedals on the bike and the shoe/pedal/crank roughly horizontal to the ground.
Look at the combination relative to fore/aft AND importantly the ROTATION of the shoe (and your foot) on each side. THAT is the orientation you want to achieve in your clipless setup... (for now). There are further considerations, for the future, on power delivery and muscle/pedaling usage...
this:

Thx
Yuri