Plantar Fasciitis is a fancy term for foot pain that is usually in your heel and/or arch of the foot that is caused by irritation of the connective tissue (plantar fascia is the specific name of that connective tissue) that help support the arch of your foot.
What are the symptoms?
As mentioned above, a person with plantar fasciitis will often have pain in the heel and/or arch of their foot. This can often be a sharp or achy feeling which comes on sometimes with your first step out of bed in the morning and also after you have been off of your feet for a while and go to stand back up. It can also cause pain while being on your feet for a prolonged period of time.
What causes it?
Oftentimes, there are two “types” of feet which are more at risk to develop plantar fasciitis.
- Flat arch
- If the arch of your foot is flat this makes your foot a poor shock absorber and connective tissue such as the plantar fascia tends to take on the brunt of the work in supporting your arch instead of the complex arrangement of bones and muscles.
- In-flexible foot
- Oftentimes these people still have a normal or even a higher than normal arch. Due to the joints in the foot being less flexible and stiff this also makes the foot a poor shock absorber and can lead to the same problem of irritating the plantar fascia.
What should I do about it?
In order to improve the pain, oftentimes a regimen of exercises as well as activity modification and joint mobilization done by a physical therapist can greatly improve or eliminate symptoms. Catching it and addressing it early is helpful in eliminating symptoms faster and with less difficulty. The more chronic a problem is, the more time it can take to improve and the more painful it can get.
Sometimes foot orthotics can be helpful, but this depends and the type of orthotic can vary greatly depending on your individual foot.
By Leigh Taylor, DPT
