Hopefully by now you have watched or read a couple of our educational pieces on how to self manage your heel pain when it first appears or when it becomes painful enough to motivate you to do something about it. But what do you do when you have followed all our tips and you are still struggling with this pain or it is not moving quick enough for your liking.
Well lucky for you, at the Podiatry Point we treat these types of problems all the time with exceptional results. So when you have heel pain that is not responding to first-line, conservative treatments the steps to recovery are clear…..
You need help! The first thing we focus on doing is evaluating where you’re at now and where you want to get to. Once we have done this we look at your pain specifically to diagnose what it is and take an in depth look at what is causing the problem in the first place. This can be any combination of;
- too much too soon,
- incorrect footwear,
- poor training technique,
- poor running or walking technique,
- muscle or joint restriction and/ or
- muscle imbalance.
The next step in treating this problem is to combine your goals with your diagnosis and the cause of the problem. Typically some of the treatment options we have at our disposal are;
- Dry needling – this is the use of the same tool as the practice of Acupuncture where we insert a solid filament needle into the skin and tissue to help specifically target and resolve trigger points. The primary focus of Dry Needling is to promote tissue healing and to restore normal tissue function
- Shockwave therapy-Shockwave therapy works by delivering acoustic rapid pulses of varying pressure and frequency to the surface of the skin creating a metabolic change to the target tissue through the skin’s surface. The changes can cause an immediate reduction in pain, increase in blood circulation and enhancement of the body’s healing processes.
- Load management – Looking at your exercise and movement intensity and modifying it to aid you in your recovery.
- Footwear prescription – assessing your current footwear and prescribing the right shoe for your foot and the goals you have in mind.
- Manual therapy including mobilisation and muscle release techniques – Mobilisation therapy involves using gentle repetitive forces to restore optimal joint position and movement. Manual therapy is the use of muscle release techniques including hands on techniques to find and release muscle adhesions; using these techniques we are looking to improve the movement of your joints and muscles
- Gait retraining – By breaking down and assessing how you run and walk we can address injury causing movement patterns and retrain how you move.
- Orthotic therapy- Orthotics are useful tool to improve foot and leg function. This often means you can continue with your activities while we work on correcting the way in which you move.
- Relative rest – relative rest is very different from complete rest. Complete rest can often have a negative impact on a lot of common heel pain injuries. It can often be a delicate balancing act deciding what enough rest is and what is too much. This is where your health professional can be very helpful.
So if you have had enough of putting up with your heel pain and would like to look into a plan that gets you the results you desire, Then give us a call on 07 46462016 or click below to make an appointment.
We have helped 1000s of people over come this problem and we would love to help you too……