Plantar fasciitis is a common foot injury involving inflammation of the tissue along the bottom of your foot. This band of tissue, known as the plantar fascia, connects your heel bone to your toes. It normally acts as a shock absorber and supports the arch in your foot. But when it gets irritated, it can cause stabbing pain and get in the way of your normal activities.
Repetitive stretching caused by running, jumping, or just standing for long periods can put too much stress on the plantar fascia. This results in small tears, inflammation, and irritation. However, in many cases, the exact cause isn’t clear.
There are a number of risk factors that increase your chances of developing plantar fasciitis. They include:
- Obesity
- Sports and exercises that involve a lot of running and jumping
- Foot issues like high arches or being flat-footed
- Occupations that involve standing for long periods
- Age (it’s most common among 40 to 60 year-olds)
If you want to know if your foot pain is caused by plantar fasciitis, here are a few signs to look for:
- Stabbing pain in the bottom of the foot, close to the heel.
- Pain is at its worst with the first few steps of the day
- Pain that gets worse after activities, not during them.
- Pain that’s triggered by rising after having sat for a long time.
- Pain that’s triggered by standing for long periods.
Besides foot pain, plantar fasciitis can lead to pain in your knees, hips, and other parts of the body. That’s because if you change your walking style to accommodate your painful foot, it puts excess strain on other areas.
There are many treatments available to help with the pain of plantar fasciitis.
Some of the options include:
- Physiotherapy can provide exercises to strengthen and stretch your leg muscles, Achilles tendon, and plantar fascia.
- Night splints can be used to stretch the arch of your foot and your calf during sleep.
- Acupuncture and ultrasound therapy can provide pain relief, promote blood flow, and stimulate tissue healing.
- Custom-designed orthotic shoe inserts can provide the proper support to relieve pain and take strain off your foot.
Here are some simple tips for how to avoid plantar fasciitis.
- Losing excess weight can reduce the stress on your plantar fascia.
- Avoid wearing worn-out shoes, especially during athletic activities, because they lack proper support.
- Stretch your plantar fascia and calf muscles regularly.
At Activa Clinics, we can help you get rapid relief from your heel pain and get fully recovered as soon as possible. To do that, we’ll create a custom treatment plan that’s suited to your particular injury, needs, and goals for your treatment.
So don’t live with the pain of plantar fasciitis any longer or let it lead to other issues—we can help!
FAQ's
Plantar fasciitis usually resolves within 6 to 18 months without treatment. With 6 months of consistent, nonoperative treatment, people with plantar fasciitis will recover 97 percent of the time.
The protection phase of healing is still first and foremost, and this requires that you rest your foot for a short time before starting any exercises. This protection phase of injury management usually lasts from 3 to 5 days. Without treatment, plantar fasciitis usually resolves within 6 to 18 months. Most people with plantar fasciitis will recover with nonoperative, consistent treatment after 6 months.
Since plantar fasciitis is essentially a repetitive strain injury to the fibrous tissue on the underside of the foot, massage therapy is a helpful treatment for relieving that strain. In particular, deep tissue massage is the technique of choice for heel pain caused by plantar fasciitis.