Heel pain can be very uncomfortable and make it hard to walk. The pain can feel sharp like a knife sticking in the bottom of your foot. The pain gets worse when you stand and after a while it feels like a dull ache. This type of heel pain causes soreness and tenderness only on the bottom of your foot, not in the back of your heel or along your sole.

Resting your foot or trying anti-inflammatories may work. You may want to eventually consider an insert or an insole made to fit your foot by a podiatrist. This can give your foot some support, reduce pressure and help relieve the pain.  Some doctors suggest s injections of corticosteroid drugs if the pain continues but there isn’t much research to show that they work.

Another option is shock wave therapy which uses high energy ultrasound waves to hammer the injured area and stimulate your body’s healing response. Shock wave therapy can be painful and sometimes does cause side effects. Moreover, keep in mind that most insurance companies don’t cover this treatment and there have been conflicting results. They don’t cover laser treatment either.

Surgery is a last resort of most people. Most people do get better without surgery. There isn’t enough data to report whether having an operation to cut away part of your plantar fascia, which is called a fasciotomy, can stop the heel pain. There are also complication risks from the surgery such as more pain, nerve damage or infection.

You can find more self treatments and prevention approaches in this digital book, Plantar Fasciitis Pain Relief Guide. It’s worth checking out.

Some years back, the New York Times published an interesting study on plantar fasciitis stating that it was the major cause of heel pain for many of the elderly. In this study, the Times indicated risk factors that our increase your chance for this condition. Interestingly, it wasn’t athletes that were most at risk but your age.

The cause for that is your feet actually widen and flatten as you age putting more stress on the fascia. The fat padding also becomes thinner so more stress is put on the heel bone. When you put into the mix that the skin on older people’s feet often becomes dry and uncomfortable, and that the elderly have more circulatory problems, it is obvious that as we get older we need to take care of our feet better and have more professional care.

The best advice is to always wear comfortable shoes that support your arch and provide some cushioning. If your job involves standing on a hard surface in one sport for a long time, place a padded rug on the floor to cushion your feet, and take a walk periodically.

If you have remedies that work let us know. Type them in the comment box and we’ll share them with our readers.

To your healthy aging.

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health and Business Writer and Content Marketer

http://secretstohealthandaging.com

http://fromretirementtocareerchange.com

In my last post I wrote about the hows and why of plantar fasciitis causing you pain. Your doctor diagnoses the condition by reviewing your medical history and symptoms and usually performing a physical exam. In some instances, an X-ray or other image study may be necessary to rule out other conditions.

A stretching program is usually the first line of treatment.  The stretching targets the heel cord or Achilles tendon. It’s also a good idea to stretch your Achilles tendon and your calf muscles daily even when you don’t have pain. Here’s an easy exercise you can do for stretching:

Stand straight with your hands against a wall and your sore foot behind your other leg. Keep you heels flat on the floor and slowly bend both knees. Hold the stretch for 20-30 seconds and repeat with the other foot. Do 6-8 repetitions three times a day.

Another stretch, this time with you sitting down, is also simple:

Sit down and cross your sore leg over the other leg.Place your fingers across the base of your toes. Pull the toes back until you feel a stretch in the arch of your foot. To relieve your pain as an initial treatment consider taking an anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen.

• During the first week of pain you may want to ice the sore heel three or four times a day.
• You might also want to try a spongy heel cup that you put inside your shoe to cushion your heel.
• You can buy cushioning for shoes in a drugstore and heel cups and heel pads can be made from felt, foam, sponge and silicone.

• Many people also wear a splint at night that supports the sore foot at an angle usually 90 degrees that relieves some of the heel pain.

Other advice is resting your foot and stop doing those sports and activities that require putting too much weight on your foot such as jogging and even yoga. My best advice is to first stretch, wear the night splint and take anti-inflammatories and wear the heel cup for 10 to 12 weeks before you purchase any custom insert.

For more information on treatments check out Foot Pain Treatment Tips.

To your  success at healthy aging.

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky

Copywriter and Content Marketer

Health and Business Freelance Writer

http://ruthanbrodsky.com

http://FootPainTreatmentTips.com

Three of the women I worked with as volunteers for yesterday’s used book sale were complaining about their feet hurting. We were all standing up helping customers find the books they wanted while keeping the tables laden with books looking relatively neat.

When I politely asked for more details about their discomfort, two women said they had heel pain and the fourth pinpointed her problem as plantar fasciitis.

Plantar fasciitis may not be a household word but it is very common. There is a risk it can happen to anyone, not just someone over 50 or 60. The pain can last for weeks or for months which makes it difficult to walk. The good news it usually gets better on its own time which makes it even more frustrating. There are some treatments, however, that do improve and maybe even speed the recovery of the condition. They are inexpensive and simple and most can be used to reduce the risk of plantar faciitis in the first place.

The plantar fascia is a band of tissue that forms the arch of your foot. It extends from your heel to each of the bones that make up the ball of your foot. There is a pad of fat in your heel, over the plantar fascia, that helps absorb the shock when you walk.

What Causes the Pain?

There are a couple of theories about why older people are at higher risk than someone who is twenty years old. The first is that as we age the plantar fascia loses its stretch. It could also be that the fat pad on the heel gets thinner and does not absorb shock very well. Or you may also have a bone spur growing where the plantar fascia joins your heel bone. This makes your heel hurt even more.

Doctors are not really sure why some people have this pain and others do not. One theory is that the plantar fascia is inflamed from too much pounding on a hard surface. The result is experience pain when you first stand up and walk in the morning or when you stand after sitting for a length time.  However, the pain usually diminishes once you start walking.
One of the problem is that plantar fasciitis is so painful it causes many to walk with a different gait. A different gait could bring on knee and hip problems and back problems. Now you are really in trouble. You may also want to learn more about fallen arches as the cause of plantar fasciitis in an earlier post.

In my next post I’ll describe some of the treatments you can do for yourself to reduce the pain. If you have questions, be sure to type them in the comment box so I can answer them in my next post or by email.

To your healthy aging.

Ruthan
Copywriter & Health and Business Writer

http://ruthanbrodsky.com

http://secretstohealthandaging.com

If you want you feet to last, to give you the support you’ll need to do the things you want to do, you will need to take care of them.  Most of us abuse our feet during the summer or if we’re in a warm client. We don’t realize that our feet are open to many problems because they do so much, like keep us upright!

The plantar fascia is a band of connective tissue that runs from the base of your heel to the base of your toes. Heel spurs begin when there’s a partial separation between this tissue and the heel bone. Sometimes this injury causes new bone growth in the affected area that projects out into the flesh of the foot. This is very painful because you can’t put any pressure on the foot. They may be caused by standing on your feet all day, wearing worn out shoes, if you are carry too much weight, or if you’re jumping up and down because you’re an aerobics teacher. A heel spur can feel as if you have a rock wedged in your heel. The pain is intense especially after you rest a while. Actually, the more you walk the better it feels .

Treatment is resting your foot and applying heat with a heating pad or hot water soak. When wearing shoes place a half-inch thick heel pad in your shoe to help cushion the pain and absorb the shock. Sometimes arch supports help take the pressure off your heel.

Again, when it comes to your feet, the best treatment is prevention. There’s an excellent digital book you can download right now that tells you everything you wanted to know about heel spurs and plantar fasciitis. Click on Plantar Fasciitis Pain Relief Guide if you’re interesting in finding out more about treatments  and prevention. I do want you to know I receive a commission if you purchase the book but I wouldn’t recommend it unless I thought it worth your while.

You can prevent heel spurs by stretching your feet and allowing them to relax throughout the day. Remove your shoes several times a day and flex and point your feet and rotate your ankles, especially after your exercise. Above all, wear comfortable shoes.  If heal padding and your home therapy doesn’t work it’s time to see your doctor. Your podiatrist may use steroid injections for temporary relief or recommend custom orthotics. As a last resort your doctor can perform surgery to remove the spur.

To your success at health and aging.
Ruthan Brodsky

Children are born with relatively flat feet, the arch develops throughout childhood and is fully developed by age 12 and 13. Some people lose this arch support because they are stressing the arch because of an injury, or due to arthritis, or because they need to lose 150 pounds.  This is serious because it can lead to other foot problems and affect you body’s alignment and then you have hip problems.   Read the rest of this entry

Not all causes of heel pain are plantar fasciitis although it is the major reason. Other possibilities of heel pain are explained below.  Read the rest of this entry

Heel pain is one of those complaints commonly diagnosed by a podiatrist, a foot doctor. To no surprise, the most common diagnosis for heel pain is plantar fasciitis. Heel Spur Syndrome is another name that is used to identify the condition. 

Plantar means the bottom of the foot. The fascia is a long ligament that runs along the foot. Itis means inflammation (tonsillitis). The name plantar fasciitis means tearing and inflammation of that long ligament at the bottom of your foot. This is a result of small micro-tears in the fascia due to overstress. 

A heel spur can develop as a result of the pull and stress of the fascia on the bone. However, the spur is usually not the cause of pain. In fact, many people with bone spurs do not have any pain at all. The pain comes from abnormal motion in your feet, usually pronation. When the feet turn in and collapse, the fascia takes on an extra stress at the heel. It only takes a small change in your activity or a change in shoes to cause a small tear if you are prone to this condition.

 If you have low arches you are probably prone to heel spurs but you can also get them if you have high arches. The tearing that occurs at the fascia, near the heel, is microscopic. It is not a full rupture but it is enough to weaken the fascia. Once the fascia is weakened it tears more just from the constant weight of the body putting a large force load on your feet. When your foot is injured it is worse.

When you have plantar fasciitis you feel a sharp pain at the heel usually when you first get up, evens out, and then gets worse throughout the day. Some only feel the pain when they’re jogging or walking. The problem is often diagnosed by palpation or pressing on the inside of the heel or inside of the arch. These are the portions of the fascia that are under the greatest stress and have more inflammation. Xrays are used to rule out other conditions such as stress fractures or a tumor.

This description should give you fairly accurate picture of what happens when your heel pain is caused by inflammation and tears of your fascia and is called plantar fasciitis. If you have more questions, give your podiatrist a call.

To your success at healthy aging.

Ruthan Brodsky

Together with all the common foot problems you may have, such as corns and calluses or bunions or toenail infections, as you get older you also have a number of special foot problems. Conditions that you may not pay much attention to when you were a teen or in your twenties become more serious as you get older.

According to the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA), 4 out of 5 people over age 50 suffer from at least one significant foot problem and require medical treatment for these problems by the time they reach 65.

Many of these problems are due to the physical, the physiological process of aging. Just like the rest of the body, the feet go through the normal wear and tear of age. You change, literally from head to toe and that includes your feet. For instance, as you get older your skin becomes more sensitive and more vulnerable to irritations and inflammations. You’re more likely to develop problems such as plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis. This most often happens to men.

Other foot problems are the result of years of abuse and neglect. If you’re one of those women who wore high-heeled shoes during your working life, you may be having problems with bunions.  Still other problems arise because so many of us, even though we’re suppose to get wiser as we get older, wear shoes that don’t fit properly or don’t give us adequate support. And finally there are all those other medical conditions, such as diabetes and arthritis and poor foot circulation.

Do you have any foot problems? Did they start when you were young? Share your story and if you found a way to treat the condition.

To your success at healthy aging.

Ruthan Brodsky