Relief From Plantar Fasciitis At-Home

 

Heel pain is the absolute worst.

Most people tend to lose hope. Luckily this doesn’t have to be the case. There’s a light at the end of this dark tunnel and this article will help show you the way.

Visit our detailed page on all the possible causes of heel pain.

Plantar Fasciitis

The most common cause of heel pain by a long shot.

It involves the irritation of a thick band of connective tissue that spans across the under part of you foot called the plantar aponeurosis. If the long arch of you foot was the bow (as in bow-and-arrow) this tissue is the bowstring. With every step you take, this bowstring stretches and often becomes irritated where it attaches to the calcaneus (heel bone).

Every step you take could be making the problem worse. And if you don’t take action to resolve this condition, you’ll have along road of pain ahead of you.

Our Oakville Chiropractor has put together an at-home professional physical therapy program based on the best currently available evidence and extensive clinical experience.

Simply put, we know how to get the results your after and this is what you need to do.

Fill out the form below for access to the complete program with exercise details and instruction.

5 Steps To Heel Pain Relief

STEP 1: Remove Exacerbating Factors

First off, let’s touch on the point that unsupportive footwear or flip-flops will make your troubles worse. Ditch the flip-flops until this is resolved.

It’s also important to understand that inflammation plays a role in plantar fasciitis. The damaged tissue triggers a pro-inflammatory response, which in turn sensitizes the nerve endings in the area (makes the pain worse). So, it stands to reason that an anti-inflammatory diet will help and smoking cigarettes most definitely will not.

STEP 2: Desensitize Involved Tissues

Pain is our body’s signal to tell us that something is not right. It’s really just an attempt to motivate us to change our behavior. So, since you’ve agreed to now take action, you won’t want to be suffering while doing so.

The mechanism of this injury is a ‘tugging’ of plantar tissue away from the heel bone. It’s very much a posterior kinetic chain dysfunction. So the following self soft tissue release will create slack up and down stream from the injured site.

plantar fasciitis water bottle massage
heel pain - tennis ball massage
heel pain - tennis ball massage

STEP 3: Strengthen Involved Tissues

Every cell in our bodies responds and adapts to mechanical stress.

We progressively strengthen the tissues that pass over the heel, to improve their resistance and resilience to physical stress. This will help you overcome this injury and is crucial in preventing it from happening again in the future.

plantar fasciitis - foot arch strengthening
heel pain - calf stretches
plantar fasciitis - eccentric calf strengthening

STEP 4: Correct Biomechanical Faults

Often the root cause of plantar fasciitis (as well as other common causes of heel pain such as Achilles Tendonitis and Fat Pad Syndrome) is actually a functional or structural dysfunction of the foot and ankle. If you think something along these lines could be a factor for you, then you would likely benefit from a biomechanical and gait analysis assessment with a qualified professional. An orthopaedic assessment from a professional Chiropractor of the hips may also be necessary, as poorly functioning hips can pass stress and compensation down stream to the foot and ankle.

STEP 5: Create Optimal Environment for Healing

More often than not, an orthotic device placed under your foot (inside your shoe) is the absolute gold standard therapy for curing heel pain. The first 4 steps listed above are very important, but optimizing the foot and ankle positioning and taking pressure off the heel with high quality Custom Orthotics will be your saving grace.

Be careful when choosing where to have your custom orthotics made. The level of expertise in this area and quality of orthotics varies greatly. And unfortunately the price point doesn’t always correlate well with quality. So be careful, do your research and vet clinics before committing so you can find the best Chiropractic clinic in your area.