I have had more than a few patients come in recently with heel pain\/discomfort. \u00a0I have had my own journey with heel pain. \u00a0Twenty plus years ago I was standing on a ladder when it slipped on the concrete floor it was on and I went down with it. \u00a0My feet were almost ten feet off the floor and I stayed with the rung and landed standing straight up. \u00a0Ouch! \u00a0It knocked the wind out of me, but I was young and did not break anything (that I knew of). \u00a0I shook it off. \u00a0I thought I was OK with no issues. \u00a0I did not got to the doctor (and did not even know that osteopaths existed). \u00a0By the time I started osteoapthic school, my feet, but especially my right one, were NOT right. \u00a0They could lock up and bring me to my knees. \u00a0I could treat them and find relief in a few seconds, but it would not stay gone. My walking would have issues sometimes. \u00a0So, to sort myself out, I have had to learn the feet well. \u00a0That way I can talk to my colleagues and instruct them on how to treat my feet.<\/p>\n
In keeping it simple, the foot has three main parts. \u00a0The forefoot (where the toes are), the\u00a0mid foot (where the arch is) and the\u00a0hind foot (where the heel is). \u00a0The mid and hind foot are supposed to MOVE in relation to one another. \u00a0This is one of the mechanisms that allows you to adapt to uneven ground. \u00a0There are a multitude of ligaments here (like rubber bands) that allow movement while\u00a0maintaining stability. \u00a0When trauma occurs (no matter where) the effected ligaments tighten. \u00a0If that trauma is in the foot, the\u00a0ligaments\u00a0that surround the heel can tighten and\u00a0restrict\u00a0the motion of the heel area.<\/p>\n
This is fairly easy to treat if you understand the anatomy. Unfortunately, most don’t. \u00a0If the trauma was simple (like using your heel to dig in the dirt), then a simple release of\u00a0the\u00a0ligaments should return you to normal and require no follow up. \u00a0If the trauma was severe (like falling off a ladder) then the ligaments likely received some damage and simple release is not enough. \u00a0They need to be addressed with either surgery by a competent\u00a0physician or\u00a0podiatrist OR they need prolotherapy (the route I chose). \u00a0After a few injections, my heel was on the mend and feeling much better.<\/p>\n
Now when one of my patients comes in and gives a similar story to mine, I am much better prepared to help them due to my journey.<\/p>\n
I know I did not cover plantar fasciitis or heel spurs here, but that was part of the learning journey as well. So, yes, I know about them and can successfully treat them as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have had more than a few patients come in recently with heel pain\/discomfort. \u00a0I have had my own journey with heel pain. \u00a0Twenty plus years ago I was standing on a ladder when it slipped on the concrete floor it was on and I went down with it. \u00a0My feet were almost ten feet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}