Tag Archives: heel pain

Foot Problems

Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis has become the prevalent complaint which affects the feet. As a result of how widespread it is, there are so many pretending to be experts about it online giving out harmful advice on what to do about it. The characteristic signs of plantar fasciitis are soreness in the heel that is worse when getting up from rest, in particular first thing each morning.

Plantar fasciitis is an issue with the plantar fascia (which is a strong ligament which supports the mid-foot of the foot) once the cumulative weight applied to the plantar fascia is higher than what the tissues can carry. Because of this there are only two main reasons for plantar fasciitis: the cumulative load is simply too high or the tissues are too weak. The stress is elevated by body weight, restricted leg muscles, activity amounts and biomechanical reasons. The tissues being too prone is caused by nutritional deficits and genetic factors.

The sensible solution to improve from plantar fasciitis is to lessen the strain and increase the capacity of the plantar fascia to take the load. You reduce the force by slimming down, using strapping in addition to foot supports, as well as stretching the calf muscles. You increase the capability of the plantar fascia to accept the load through ensuring the dietary status is satisfactory and perform gradual loading activities for the plantar fascia. You can’t do anything at all about the genetics. It is really that easy and there is no necessity for plantar fasciitis to become such a huge problem that it is.

The problem with the therapy of plantar fasciitis and all the tips being given on the web for this is that the natural history of plantar fasciitis is to get better by itself eventually. Just look into the placebo groups in the clinical studies on different treatments for plantar fasciitis; they do improve. Eventually could be a long time and it is sore, so they still need to be addressed rather than wait until it improves. This means that, it doesn’t matter what therapy is used, a particular percent will likely become better regardless as a result of that natural history. Which means that bad remedies persist as they all do manage to help some, when in reality they didn’t help any. Those who appear to be effectively treated with that treatment probably will propose that it is useful. This also implies that the treatments that ought to be used are those which have been shown to result in superior results than just the natural history. Because of this we won’t become misled into believing a therapy will work when in reality it might not work any better than the natural history. You should be cautious taking any recommendations on the internet for almost any medical problem.

Rheumatology

The Foot in Ankylosing Spondylitis

Ankylosing spondylitis is a long-term inflammatory joint condition that usually affects the vertebrae, but could affect all joints in the body and several other organ systems. The name ‘ankylosing’ means a fusing of the joints and ‘spondylitis’ means the spine. The disease impacts on about 0.1-0.2% of the population and does affect males more often. It generally simply begins as an ache in the lower back which is really no different in signs and symptoms to almost every other common low back condition so is typically treated as such. Generally, this treatment will probably not work and other methods get used. Inevitably, when some other symptoms occur in additional joints there might be more investigation bringing about the proper diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis. This process could take up to a decade before the diagnosis is made. The standard approach to treatment for this is to use drugs to deal with the inflammatory process inside the joint along with physiotherapy to help keep the spine mobile and flexible.

Ankylosing spondylitis affects the foot often. One way is that the joint inflammation process can affect the joints in the feet and cause symptoms there. Heel spurs or plantar fasciitis is quite common in those with this disease. This type of heel pain isn’t the typical one that you get because it is part of the disease process, consequently tends not to respond effectively to the conventional methods of dealing with heel pain. Like the joint inflammation that impacts the joints in the foot, the treatment is primarily directed at the drugs that reduce the inflammatory response. The other way that ankylosing spondylitis impacts feet are indirect. Because the major symptoms of the disease are in the spine, the lower as well as upper back become very limited in motion, so people that have ankylosing spondylitis tend to have difficulties bending over to reach their feet. Because of this they cannot even perform basic things like cut their own toe nails or self-care for their feet. They’re also going to have issues managing different conditions that impact the foot. They will often need to see a podiatrist frequently for foot care and maintenance of foot health and for the regular management of any foot conditions that might occur.