Pain in the Arch? Plantar Fasciitis can be painful and debilitating when left untreated.

What is Plantar Fasciitis?

Heel pain is a common complaint among approximately 2 million people per year, and nearly 10% of the population over a lifetime. 1 We have a thick band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes (the plantar fascia) and when it gets inflamed, it causes pain. The diagnosis for that pain is plantar fasciitis.

How do we treat it?

Those who regularly carry a large load on their muscles readily respond to: relative rest, appropriate stretching, addressing any biomechanical restrictions/ abnormalities from the spine down, temporary taping of the foot, and in some cases, orthotics. We can help put you on the right path with any of these items

While some who experience this pain are runners and athletes, most people actually develop the pain gradually in a manner unrelated to a specific sport or incident. In these situations, if not appropriately treated, it’s not unusual for symptoms to take a year to resolve. But why is that? If this was simply just tissue inflammation, it would more often than not consistently respond to relative rest.

Finding the Source of the Pain

The plantar fascia is actually made of incredibly stiff, strong tissue and is designed for support. It would take a substantial amount of force to stretch or tear. However, some of the smaller muscles that originate underneath the plantar fascia may also be sensitive to pressure, stretch, and/or loading.

So what if the irritability is primarily driven from another area? Two specific muscles in the lower leg, the gastrocenemius (see figure 1) and the soleus (see figure 2), have ‘Trigger Points’ that can be responsible for pain in the arch and the heel respectively. ‘Trigger Points’ are areas of taught bands or nodules, particularly within muscles, that are hyper-irritable and refer pain to predictable areas distant from the trigger point, causing restriction of movement, weakness, and other symptoms. They can be ‘latent’, that is, they are present, but not active.

It makes sense that stretching can help affect these areas of hyper-irritability. When stretching alone doesn’t eliminate the pain though, manual therapy can provide the effective solution to resolve the trigger point pain. So if your pain isn’t resolving with standard home remedies, consider a physical therapy consultation.