Important Things You Should Know About Plantar fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis is diagnosed by looking at your medical history and doing a physical check-up. During the exam, your doctor will look for body points where your foot hurts. The place where you feel pain can help you figure out what’s going on.

Imaging tests

Usually, there aren’t any tests to diagnose Plantar fasciitis. Your doctor might ask you to get an X-ray or an MRI to make sure that another problem, like a stress fracture, isn’t making you hurt.

Sometimes, an X-ray shows that a piece of bone (spur) is sticking out from the heel bone. Before, these bone spurs were often blamed for heel pain and had to be cut out with surgery. But many people with bone spurs on their heels don’t have heel pain.

Treatment: Most people who have plantar fasciitis get better in a few months with simple treatment, like resting, icing the area that hurts, and stretching exercises.

Medications: You can take painkillers if you have plantar fasciitis, which can cause pain and inflammation.

Therapies

Stretching and strengthening exercises, as well as using special tools, may help. They also have:

· Get help from your doctor: An expert in physical therapy can show you how to stretch your plantar fascia and Achilles tendon, as well as how to strengthen your lower legs with a set of exercises. A therapist might also show you how to apply athletic tape to the bottom of your foot to help it stay in place.

· Night splints: You might want to wear one that helps stretch your calves and the arch of your foot as you sleep. This keeps the plantar fascia and Achilles tendon stretched while you sleep.

· Orthotics: Your doctor might give you arch supports (orthotics) that are off-the-shelf or made to fit your feet. They help distribute the pressure on your feet more evenly.

· Surgical or other kinds of things.

If more conservative measures don’t work after a few months, your doctor might suggest:

· Injections: Injecting steroid medication into the area that hurts can help relieve some of the pain for a short time. You shouldn’t get more than one shot because it could weaken your plantar fascia and cause it to rupture. Using ultrasound imaging, platelet-rich plasma from the patient’s own blood can be injected into the body to help it heal.

· Extracorporeal shock wave therapy: In this procedure, sound waves are directed at the area of heel pain in order to help it heal. It’s usually used for long-term plantar fasciitis pain that hasn’t worked with less-aggressive treatments. The results of a few studies are promising, but it hasn’t been proven to be always effective.

· Ultrasonic repair of tissue: This minimally invasive technology was part of a Mayo Clinic project. It uses ultrasound imaging to help guide a needle-like probe into the plantar fascia tissue that is damaged. It breaks up the damaged tissue with ultrasound energy, and then the probe tip vibrates quickly to remove it.

· Surgery: To get the plantar fascia off of your heel bone, very few people need to go to the doctor and have surgery. When the pain is very bad and other treatments haven’t worked, it’s usually a good idea to try surgery. It can be done open or through a small cut with local anesthesia.

If you want to lessen the pain of plantar fasciitis, try these self-care tips:

Keep your weight in check. Extra weight can put extra stress on your plantar fascia, which can cause it to tear.

Choose strong shoes. Take a look at the shoes before you buy them. They should have low to moderate heels, thick soles, good arch support, and extra cushioning. Don’t go barefoot.

Don’t wear worn-out sports shoes. Make sure you get new athletic shoes before your old ones don’t support and cushion your feet anymore.

Change your game. Try a low-impact sport like swimming or biking instead of walking or running.

You can put ice on your skin. You can hold a cloth-covered ice pack over the area of pain for 15 minutes three or four times a day to help with the pain. Ice can help with pain and inflammation. Icing can help you to get relief from plantar fasciitis

Stretch out your arches, and you will look better. The plantar fascia, Achilles tendon, and calf muscles can all be stretched with simple home exercises that you can do on your own.