All about heel spur treatments
Heel spur (also called plantar fasciitis or calcaneal spur) is a very nasty foot injurie that can be very hard to get rid of. Happily there are quite a number of treatments possible, some of which have a high success-ratio. We have tried to discuss every treatment possible. Some of these can be applied at home, for others you should seek aid of a therapist.
All together we have listed 21 different treatments, divided into 3 sections: Self-aid, Therapist and Alternative. Hopefully one of these will get you on your feet again!
What is heel spur
When you suffer from plantar fasciitis, the heel hurts. Heel spur is an inflammation under the heel close the attachment of the plantar fascia, which runs from the heel to the forefoot. Often a calcination occurs (a bony spur), which can be seen on x-ray. Because the x-ray is taken from aside this calcination often looks like a real spur, while actually this is much less so then shown on the x-ray, as the plantar fascia is quite broad here.
This 'spur' will not necessarily result in heelpain. Almost 30% of the population has these spurs, while only a limited portion of those has complaints. It can even occur that people have hell pain without the presence of a spur. The actual problem that causes pain is the inflammation.
In short: Most patients with heel pain suffer from plantar fasciitis, often, but not necessarily, accompanied by a calcaneal spur. As in both cases the complaints will be the same (as is the treatment), we will speak from heel spur from now on, as this is the most common term for this injury.
Causes
Basically heel spur is a stress injury similar to a tennis elbow, caused by too much tension or weight on the tendon, causing a pulling force on the attachment of tendon on the heel. Actual overload like running, jumping etc. can cause this, but also an incorrect stance caused by incorrect shoewear. To sum up these and some other causes:
- Overload by sports
- Mountain walking (Walking hill-up causes a lot of stretch and stress on the fascia)Bad shoes
- No cushioning in the shoes
- Stiff soles, prevnting a natural form of walking
- Overweight
- Short calf muscles
- Standing still a lot
- Flat or hollow feet
- Heel cushion atrphy (not enough cushioning tissue under the heel, often found with elderly)
Symptoms
Heelspur patients will often suffer from pain under the foot, especially under the foreside of the heel. They often feel a sore heel. Symptoms reported are the following:
- Irritation under the heel, especially in the morning, or after longer periods of inactivity. After some walking around or warming up the pain usually eases a bit. Problem is that nerves and blood vessels also rest, and suddenly walking causes a painful stress-reaction. This stress subdues after some warming-up. This is especially the case in the for early heelspur-patients. More severe cases will continue to suffer the pain, and can actually even worsen it from walking around.
- Painfull standing still. Persons with occupations requiring to stand still often will suffer severe hell pain. This is why heelspur is sometimes referred to as "Policeman's heel"...
- Stifness or tension in the fascia aanvoelen van de peesplaat onder de voet. De peesplaat voelt soms duidelijk strak en gespannen aan, ook weer een stress reactie.
- Pain felt while driving a car, caused by the unnatural position of the foot (cruise control helps!).
- Often the heel pain is hard to localize, the whole underfoot can then feel sore, or also more to the heel. Also the pain can vary from day to day.
Try to pay attention to all these symptoms, and act accordingly. The longer the injury lasts, the longer it takes to get rid of it!
Treatments overview
There are so many possible ways of treating heelspur that it can be hard to decide on a therapy to follow. This website aims to give some guidance in that by giving an overview of all known treatments, mentioning both pro's and cons. Some of these methods can be quite easily applied, and are worth following first before trying some more drastic measures.
Especially in the early stages of heelspur there some very simple measures that can often help. Of course it is always wise to ask doctor's advice, but here are some easy cures:
Check your shoes, and replace them if necessary, bad shoes can frequently be the cause of the injury. Next to that, there are some pretty good standard inlay soles on the market that can support a good stance.
Also, check the your stance, and , if applicable, try to lose some weight. For the pain itself you may try some painkillers, but beware that this just just relieves the pain itself, not the heelspur itself.
Still suffering? Stretching your muscles, especially foot soles and calf is very good, possibly combined with some workouts for your leg muscles. Also the Strassburg sock or night splint can support the heeling process, as well as cooling the injury with ice.
If all these measures still don't work, you should really visit a good doctor, or a physio therapist or a podiatrist.
A podiatrist will usually advise you on some custom inlay soles, dependant on the stance of your feet. A physiotherapist will usually work on strengthening your leg muscles, apply massage (sometimes friction massage), tape the foot, or treat you with shockwave therapy. Shockwave therapy is more and more becoming one of the standard methods to treat heelspur, and is often very successful in doing so.
Still no succes? There are some drastic methods like surgery or injections that are sometimes applied. These methods are sometimes successful, but are also known for sometimes affescting an opposite effect, worsening the injury.
Finally some alternative methods are discussed here::
- massage
- triggerpoint massage
- dry-needling
- acupuncture
- And still there are more, but these are just too specific or controverse that they are not discussed here. You may check further on-line to see if they are worth pursuing, like for example: osteopathy, homeopathy, abc therapy, etc.