Plantar Fasciitis:

The Most Common Cause of Heel Pain Revealed!

You wake up and crawl out of bed–only to feel a sharp, stabbing pain shoot up from your heel. No, you didn’t step on a tack. It’s likely plantar fasciitis, one of the most common causes of heel pain worldwide.

Plantar fasciitis is a painful condition that affects your plantar fascia, a band of tissue running along the bottom of your foot from your heel to your toes. When the plantar fascia becomes irritated or inflamed, usually due to overuse, it leads to foot discomfort (which then makes it harder for you to get around).

While plantar fasciitis is painful, it’s also easily treated with physical therapy. The team at Connecticut Physical Therapy Specialists will work closely with you to rehabilitate your injury, providing immediate pain relief and helping you uncover what caused your plantar fasciitis in the first place.

Today, we want to give you an overview of plantar fasciitis so you know what you’re dealing with. Already struggling with foot or heel pain?

Call us to schedule an appointment so we can start helping you find relief!

How Do I Know It’s Plantar Fasciitis?

Many injuries can cause foot pain, from ankle sprains to tiny stress fractures. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the location and sensation of your foot pain, as well as any mobility issues. To help you understand the signs and symptoms of plantar fasciitis, let’s look at an example case.

Sarah had recently taken up running after several years away. She loved going out every morning and jogging around her neighborhood. But after a few weeks, she started to experience discomfort on the bottom of her foot whenever she went for a run.

The pain usually started as a sharp, stabbing pain on the bottom of her heel, but she also noticed that the arch of her foot felt tender and restricted.

After experiencing the pain for the first time, she started to notice it more frequently, and not just after her runs, either:

• First thing in the morning, when she got out of  bed
• While standing in a long line at the grocery store
• While spending a day walking around an amusement park
• After watching a long movie in the theater

When Sarah eventually visited a physical therapist to seek treatment for her foot pain, she made sure to carefully lay out all the times she experienced pain (and all the times she didn’t; Sarah noticed the pain tended to fade around mid-morning, then flare up in the evening). That, along with her detailed explanation of the pain’s location, helped her PT correctly identify her pain as plantar fasciitis.

Physical Therapy: Frontline Treatment for Plantar Fasciitis

The Connecticut Physical Therapy Specialists team’s knowledge of your body’s musculoskeletal systems means we can help you treat plantar fasciitis without invasive treatment methods (like surgery). While rehabilitation might take some time (usually a few weeks to a few months), you can resolve your pain through targeted foot exercises.

Here’s what you can expect when you visit us:

• A thorough evaluation: Besides reviewing your symptoms, we’ll conduct a comprehensive gait assessment and other movement screens to help us identify any biomechanical factors that might contribute to your plantar fasciitis.
• Pain management: We’ll help manage your acute pain through hands-on manual therapy techniques, foot taping, and other drug-free approaches.
• Therapeutic exercise: Stretching and strengthening exercises will help resolve your current bout of plantar fasciitis. We’ll provide you with a tailored exercise program, including simple exercises you can do at home to help maximize your recovery.
• Prevention tips: Plantar fasciitis is usually an overuse injury, meaning it develops gradually over time. A frequent cause of plantar fasciitis is starting an intense new workout program (as Sarah did). Faulty gait mechanics and other lifestyle factors can contribute to it as well. We’ll provide you with customized advice and strategies for avoiding future incidents of plantar fasciitis.

3 Tips for Starting a New Workout Routine Without Injury

As physical therapists, we’re fans of exercise. The CDC recommends that adults get 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, and regular exercise will boost your mental and physical health.

That said, you can’t immediately jump from a completely sedentary lifestyle to intense, hour-long daily workouts. For one, you’re likely to burn out and quit regular exercise altogether. But you also run the risk of injuring yourself.

Fortunately, there are a few strategies that can help you safely start up a physically active lifestyle:

1. Talk to your physical therapist: Ever notice how workout videos tell you to consult with a medical professional first? If you’re new to exercising, this is crucial advice! Before you dive into a new routine, schedule an appointment with our PTs. We’ll perform a comprehensive assessment and help you guide you toward the right exercises for your needs.
2. Start slowly and gradually build the intensity: If you’ve ever talked to marathon runners, they’ll tell you they spend months training. No one jumps off the couch and immediately runs 26.2 miles! Follow their lead and start with low-intensity workouts. Over time, you can add more time or more challenging exercises to your routine.
3. Warm up and cool down: Make sure you begin every workout session with ten minutes of mobility exercises or light cardio and end each session with gentle stretches. Warm-ups prepare your body for movement, and cool-downs help bring your breathing and heart rate down to non-exercise levels.

At Connecticut Physical Therapy Specialists, we love helping our patients get active safely and at their own pace. Call us today for personalized advice about starting your new workout routine.