Plantar Fasciitis is almost always the first thing that pops into mind when we hear ‘heel pain’. But what if you’ve been diagnosed with — or you think you have — plantar fasciitis but none of its treatments seem to be effective? This article presents two of the lesser known causes of heel pain, which could be the real cause of your problem.
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Plantar fasciitis is also known for other terms such as jogger’s / runner’s heel or, back in the day, policeman’s heel. As you may assume, the condition is called as such because of the damage and inflammation the plantar fascia gets due to injury or overuse.
If you have plantar fasciitis, there are certain steps you can take to manage and cure it: Take medications that reduce inflammation. In the morning, it’s important to stretch first so as not to shock your muscles and ligaments as you take your first step. Doing more stretching exercises throughout the day is also recommended. If you can, submerge your feet in warm water before putting your feet to work to loosen up muscles. You also need strengthening exercises for the muscles around your feet so that your plantar fascia will be better supported. At the end of your day, apply cold compress.You can choose to wear night splints. This will prevent the plantar fascia from getting tight while sleeping. You can also get an orthotic to prevent further damage of ligament when in use. If you are a runner for example, this will provide you the best running shoes for plantar fasciitis.But what if heel pain keeps coming back, and you think doing the above mentioned treatments is not improving your situation? Then perhaps the pain is caused by another, less apparent issue.One is a trigger point in the calf muscle. A trigger point is a tiny abnormal swelling of cells in one part the body that generates pain to another area.
Doctors with many years of extensive research and testing on this topic have discovered that another source for heel pain is a trigger point in the calf area, particularly the muscle called soleus. Many patients who actually have this situation are mistaken to have plantar fasciitis. So if plantar fasciitis treatments do not work, then this is one other angle to consider.
Fortunately, checking if you have a trigger point in your soleus muscle is not difficult to do and it is easy to address! There are many reference sources that can help you locate the soleus muscle in your leg. Basically what you have to do is to start at the back of your heel and slowly press your way up and around the soleus region, looking for a tender spot. This trigger point when pressed will produce a twitch reaction from your muscle. And if you start to feel the heel pain that you have been experiencing while pressing this spot, then this is probably the actual cause of your complaint.
Finding instructions online or through books on how to eliminate this trigger point is easy for self-therapy. But of course, seeking a physical therapist is always the best option.Now what if testing for trigger point yielded negative results? Then another aspect you can look into is the state of your reproductive organ. Yes – heel pain could say something about the condition of your reproductive organ!
We’re talking from the perspective of foot reflexology. You’ve probably seen and read about our feet having corresponding points for each of our body organs. If you study and take a better look at foot reflexology, you’ll learn that our feet simply reflect the general positioning of organs in our body; Points for organs on our head are located on our toes. Organs such as the heart and lungs have points located on the balls of our foot. Points for our digestive organs are located somewhere in the middle. And finally, the points for the reproductive organs are located below – the heels.
Therefore, if you are starting to doubt Plantar Fasciitis as the cause of heel pain, it would help to observe when the pain usually attacks in relation to some relevant factors. For instance, in the case of women, monitoring the pain in connection to monthly cycle will serve as useful information to determine if this is in fact the cause.
Are you running out of options for treating plantar fasciitis, perhaps it’s time to look at these two possibilities.
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