Plantar Fasciitis: Know the Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

Developing Plantar Fasciitis is common in active men and women aged between 40 and 60 years old. Although it can affect both genders, it is slightly more common among women. It has been connected to imbalanced and excessive stress on one foot from improper biomechanics.

Ignoring plantar fasciitis may result in chronic heel pain that hinders your regular activities. Changing the way you walk to relieve plantar fasciitis pain might lead to common foot, knee, hip or back problems.

If left untreated, plantar fasciitis symptoms will worsen. 

The gold standard is identifying the improper biomechincs and correcting them with custom made, prescription functional orthotics and supportive footwear.

Nonsurgical Treatment

Rest

The first thing you should do if you suspect that you have plantar fasciitis is to cease any activities that make the pain worse. This may include discontinuing aerobic exercises or exercise routines involving repetitive foot pounding (such as running).

Cold Pack

– To relieve pain, place an ice pack with a cloth over the sore area. An ice pack can help reduce pain and inflammation.

Stretch

– Plantar fasciitis is the painful inflammation of the plantar fascia ligament in your foot. Tight calf muscles can exacerbate this condition. Hence, frequent stretching helps relieve pain.

Kinds of stretching that are helpful to alleviate pain:

• Calf Stretch – loosening the calf muscle tightness can lessen the pain. Start with leaning your hands against the wall, slowly straighten your knee of the affected leg, then bend your other knee in front. While doing this, keep both your feet flat on the ground. You should feel the stretching sensation in your calf and heel of the extended leg. Do this within a few seconds, and repeat two to three times.

• Plantar Fascia Stretch – to ease your foot muscles’ tightness in the plantar fascia, you can sit on a chair, cross your affected leg over the other leg while placing the fingers across the base of your toes, then pull back the toes. You should feel your arch stretch, then place your other hand on the bottom of your foot to feel the tension in the plantar fascia. Do this within ten seconds and repeat two to three times.

• Foot Flexes – It is common for patients with plantar fasciitis to experience calf muscle tightness and pain on the bottom of their feet. Thus, flexing your foot can help relieve this muscle tension and improve blood flow. This stretch needs to use an elastic stretch band. To do this, you need to sit on the floor with your legs straight, start to wrap the elastic band around the affected foot while holding the ends in your hands. Slowly point your toes away from your body, then gently return to the starting position. You can repeat it five to ten times.

Therapies

• Physical Therapy – Your doctor may recommend that you work closely with a physical therapist to develop an exercise routine that focuses on stretching your calf muscles and plantar fascia. Aside from the exercises that are mentioned above, this exercise routine may include more specialised variations of ice treatments, massage therapy, or medication to manage inflammation around the plantar fascia.

• Night Splints – Your doctor might recommend that you wear night splints when you are sleeping. The role of night splints is to stretch your plantar fascia and Achilles tendon.

• Orthotics – the purpose of wearing custom corrective  orthotics is to correct the underlying biomechanical conditions that are causing the plantar fascia to strain. helps distribute the pressure evenly across your feet.

Other Medical Treatments and Procedures

• Cortisone Injections – can help reduce the inflammation and pain caused by plantar fasciitis, but they should only be administered in moderation. Additionally, multiple doses of cortisone injection may cause the plantar fascia to rupture (tear), leading to a flat foot and chronic pain. They do not address the root of the problem.

• Surgery – In more severe cases or when any conservative treatment becomes ineffective, surgical release of the plantar fascia may be indicated. If you have a normal range of foot ankle motion but continue to experience heel pain, ankle surgeons may recommend an endoscopic partial release procedure. During surgery, the plantar fascia ligament is partially cut to relieve tension in the tissue. If there’s a large bone spur that needs removal, it will be taken care of during this time as well. However, endoscopy has a significant risk of nerve damage.

• Extracorporeal shock wave therapy – is a non-invasive treatment that stimulates shock waves to injured soft tissue to alleviate pain and promote healing. It is often performed to acute plantar fasciitis and not chronic plantar fasciitis with biomechanical posture disorders of the foot that will require a custom corrective orthotic.