Have you ever woken up in the morning, tried to take your first step out of bed, and feel a sharp pain on the bottom of your foot? If you have, you might be dealing with plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis is a common, but very painful condition that occurs along the bottom of the foot.

Plantar Fasciitis: What is it? Video

Key Takeaways:

• Plantar fasciitis is a painful irritation of the plantar fascia, a thick piece of connective tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot
• The pain is worse after you have been sleeping or sitting down for a while, which allows the fascia to become tight
• Plantar fasciitis is a repetitive stress injury and requires a good history during the assessment
• Treatment involves rest, good nutrition, and therapies to reduce biomechanical stress to lessen the repetitive injury on the feet
• Chiropractic care, along with exercise and manual therapy, are effective treatments

Are you struggling with Plantar Fasciitis?

Plantar fasciitis can sometimes heal on its own, but it’s usually an excruciating couple of weeks or months. Chiropractic care can help reduce the pain and speed up the healing process. Call our Burlington office at 336-270-3050 or use the link below to schedule and find out what chiropractic care can do for you.

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Plantar Fasciitis: What is it? Video Transcript

DISCLAIMER: This is a direct transcript of the video audio and may not be grammatically correct.

Plantar fasciitis is a condition that we keep seeing in our office over and over again. It is a common injury in runners and during this time of year when people are beginning to run more and enter more fun, holiday 5K’s.

What is the plantar fascia? What is plantar fasciitis?

This is a piece of connective tissue that runs along the very bottom of our feet starting at our heel and connecting at the ball of our foot and running into the toes. To have the condition of plantar fasciitis all that has to occur is some irritation of that plantar fascia.

Pain from this plantar fascia is more commonly at the very bottom of the foot. Pain is especially felt in the mornings in people with plantar fasciitis. The reason the mornings are painful is that overnight the fascia gets really tight and draws the foot together.

When you walk, your foot wants to splay or spread out and make full contact with the ground. If you have plantar fasciitis, that connective tissue is tight and does not allow the foot to spread out naturally. Typically, a sharp stabbing pain will be felt on the bottom of the foot. 

This can also happen if you have been sitting down for long periods of time and you just have not been weight-bearing. After you start to move around that fascia will begin to loosen and the pain will alleviate. 

How do you get plantar fasciitis?

This injury is typically a repetitive stress injury and the interesting part is there is not any actual trauma to the plantar fascia itself. It is usually caused by an imbalance in the muscles and joints being used. 

The imbalances can occur in the foot as well as in the calf muscle. The plantar fascia is a continuation of the calf muscle that sits on the lower back half of our leg. Since the calf muscles called the gastroc and soleus run down the leg and form the Achilles then flow into forming the plantar fascia, there is often tightness in these leg muscles. 

Since this is a repetitive stress injury, the issue usually is there is not enough time between training sessions for the body to heal the small micro damages to the muscles and tendons. 

Hopefully, this helped shed some light on what the plantar fascia is and how we develop plantar fasciitis. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, and always remember to live with passion and not pain.