Plantar fasciitis is a common foot condition that can cause significant discomfort and impact your daily activities. At Rebalance Physical Therapy, we offer specialized plantar fasciitis physical therapy treatment options to help you find relief and reduce pain. A trained physical therapist at Rebalance can help you with manual therapy techniques as well as correct stretching exercises for plantar muscles, achilles tendon, gait training, toes extensions, and strengthening lower leg muscles to stabilize your ankle.
What is Plantar Fasciitis?
Plantar Fasciitis occurs when the tissue on the bottom of the foot becomes irritated and causes acute or chronic pain in the heel (also known as chronic plantar fasciitis) or on the bottom of the food.
What are the symptoms of Plantar Fasciitis?
At the bottom of your foot, there is a ligament called the Plantar Fascia. It is a thick band of tissue that attaches at the heel bone and the front of the foot and supports the arch. When the Plantar Fascia is irritated, it can cause pain in the heel and/or on the bottom of the foot.
Plantar Fasciitis symptoms include:
- heel pain in the morning upon waking up.
- constant pain in the foot, anywhere from the heel to the fore front of the foot
- foot or plantar heel pain after walking for extended periods of time
- foot pain or heel pain after standing for long periods of time
- foot pain or heel pain after running for long distances.
If you are diagnosed with plantar fasciitis by your healthcare provider or experience pain during any of these situations mentioned above, reach out to Rebalance sports physical therapy team to book a consultation.
What causes Plantar Fasciitis?
Usually, there’s a repetitive issue that is triggering the plantar fasciitis. It can be caused by repeated strain, either from tight musculature somewhere in the hips or legs or faulty body mechanics from as high up as the hip or trunk. Other risk factors or causes that are associated with plantar fasciitis include weight bearing activities such as prolonged standing, running, sudden increase in physical activity or activity modification among others. Activities that increase the stretch of plantar fascia such as walking barefoot without arch support, toe walking, climbing stairs, pre-existing flat feet condition, or wearing high heels can also cause pain and inflammation.
Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis with Physical Therapy
In a traditional medical setting, patients with plantar fasciitis are typically advised to wear good foot orthotics (shoe inserts), stretch your calf muscles, roll a ball underneath it, apply ice to the painful area, rest it and wear a night splint to see if it gets better. Sometimes, for an initial plantar fasciitis injury, this is sufficient to relieve the symptoms.
However, it’s important to understand that this is a repetitive issue that’s being caused by an imbalance of the muscles that affect how the foot lands when walking or running. This includes muscles all the way up into the hip, pelvis and trunk. It’s important to address the whole body alignment when treating plantar fasciitis, to prevent the condition from becoming chronic. If you don’t treat the whole system, it’s very likely the plantar fasciitis will come back.
At Rebalance, plantar fasciitis physical therapy treatments go beyond just treating the foot and calves. We look at the musculature of the legs, hip, pelvis and trunk to assess how the muscles are moving and functioning. We treat every muscle that is contributing to the plantar fasciitis. This helps to improve alignment. Once the body is properly aligned, then we focus on stretching exercises and strengthening the muscles as well as the joints and soft tissue.
Some of the treatment methods our physical therapists might use to treat plantar fasciitis include:
