You wake up in the morning, get out of bed and start walking and “OUCH,” you feel a sharp pain in the heel of your foot. After walking a bit it does get better and maybe it goes away. Each morning, the same thing happens over and over again. Sound familiar? You probably have plantar fasciitis.

If you go to a podiatrist, orthopedic or family doctor, what will you get? Anti-inflammatory meds, a cortisone injection, shockwave (ultrasound) therapy or surgery? Do you think any of these are fixing the cause of the problem? They are not. They are just treating the pain and inflammation, the symptoms of the condition.

We have been treating various types of foot and heel pain, including plantar fasciitis, for years. We have seen numerous cases come in that have tried the “medical approach” with little or no results. The way we have been able to make their pain go away is to find and treat the underlying “mechanical” cause that is “stressing out” the foot. The bottom line is, something in the foot is not working right and what makes us unique and different is we find what isn’t working right and fix it.

Here are the 3 most common causes of heel pain:

1. Misalignment of your posture and/or the bones in your foot. Misalignments cause tissue stress which commonly leads to pain.
2. Loss of Flexibility of your hip, knee, ankle, foot or toes. This can occur from an old injury to any of these joints or it can be due to compensation.  For example, if you lack flexibility in your ankle, you may be collapsing your arch (overpronation) when you walk or run.  Arch collapse creates stress at the heel leading to pain.
3. Weakness of muscles in your leg or foot that hold up your arch. Muscle weakness can cause your arch to collapse, creating stress at the heel leading to pain. Equal and balanced strength of all muscles is important to keep your arch and foot tripod strong and keep stress off your heel.

Misalignment, flexibility, and weakness all need to be assessed and fixed in order to eliminate heel pain. Medication, injections and surgery do not fix the underlying cause of the pain. Chiropractic adjustments to the foot and ankle and movement and strengthening exercises do! When you experience better alignment, flexibility, movement, and strength, pain relief is often immediate or within the first few treatments.

More Causes of Heel Pain

We help people with heel pain every day.  If you or someone you know is suffering from heel pain and is looking for a drug-free, non-surgical treatment option, contact us to see if we can help.