Did you know that 1 in every 10 people will suffer from Plantar fasciitis at some point in their lives that shows just how common this condition really is. And it is not very nice condition to have.. as it is quite painful and can really put the stoppers on your busy life while you wait for it to heal (or should you put your feet up and rest with PF? In this article we will be looking at what causes PF and exactly what you should do if you have it)!
Plantar fasciitis is the product of being fit and healthy or not… Confused? Well join the party as this is a rather confusing condition that effects many different people for many very different reasons. On one hand you got plantar fasciitis effecting the most healthiest and athletic of people and on the opposite side you have plantar fasciiitis hitting people who are inactive and who are overweight and do not do much physical activity.
Things to blame (causes)!
It is a inflammatory condition brought on by over usage of the arch of your foot… athletes often will use the arches in their feet when running, jumping and whatever else you can think of, the arch of the foot is designed to pass weight onto the toes even though athletes can have quite strong supportive tissue around the arch sometimes or if they do not properly warm up before exercise they may pull the tissue making up (Known as the plantar fascia) from over use of their arches, whereby the arches simply can no longer take the strain and become inflamed, people with fallen arches which is when someone has flat feet or those with high arches will tend to have a much high risk of developing PF because their arches designed less efficient and thus less able to cope under pressures and and tighten much quicker under much less pressure and tension than people with “normal” feet.
Hard surfaces can be to blame for PF as well, if you start running on hard surfaces which can result in the shock impact when your feet hit the ground to travel mostly up into your feet can cause all sorts of problems and can inflame the arch if you are not used to this.
Those who are overweight or do not do physical activity involving their feet much will also have a greater chance of PF because the muscles in their feet will be much less strong than others and if they are overweight this weight also adds greater pressure on top of the the arches. This extra weight can also cause more build up of pressure under the heels of the feet as well causing heel pain.
As we age our joints,muscles, tissues will all weaken and this includes the plantar fascia making it “not what it used to be”, less flexible, less strong and therefore cannot hold and support as much weight and pressure so you have to look after your body and especially your feet as you get older much more!
Treatment
Ligament tissue tends to take quite a while to heal up so if you have plantar fasciitis so you maybe waiting for quite a few weeks or even months for it to go fully.
There are various things that you can try to help with the healing process for example:
-Avoid walking or running on hard surfaces as the shock will further damage the plantar fascia.
-Do not wear tight fitting shoes! To stop further damage to the feet tissues your feet will often swell up and in some cases heel spurs will develop a growth, these symptoms will usually go away as your feet repair themselves, but do bring the issue that usually your shoes then become to tight and this can cause further problems such as even more pressure which can escalate the situation so you must take this into consideration when you have plantar fasciitis.
-Be more active! Sometimes if you are suffering from PF you may find your self putting your feet up and not getting out as much because it is just too painful to walk, but you do not have to sit still! You may think that resting your feet will help them recover quickly but in some cases this doesn’t really help much at all. This is because plantar fasciiits causes swelling of the foot and if you are not moving and using your feet the swelling will take a lot longer to go down because the fluid in the foot will not be pumped out of the foot so keeping active during recovery of plantar fasciiits is rather important but at the same time hard because how are you meant to walk on a foot that is effected by PF, is swollen, inflamed and sore? Putting weight on it when it is weak and still in the healing process can be bad for recovery but doing light foot stretching exercises which encourage blood flow helping with the healing process as your body quickly regenerates damaged cells. Stretching exercises will also help to re-strengthen the effected tissues can be done. A tight Achilles tendon can resort to a tightness of the plantar fascia and a tight plantar fascia is more easily damaged and more easily pulled because the plantar fascia connects the Achilles tendon to the toes on your feet doing Achilles stretches and exercises is one way to help. Those who do not do much exercises like running will usually have a much tighter Achilles tendons and thus higher chances of a tighter plantar fascia as a effect.
-Insoles can also take much of the strain from off your arches and can get you back on your feet far quicker with a decreased risk of damaging the tissues as if you buy arch supporting inserts they help give you the extra support where needed and by providing shock absorption to stop shocks from further damaging the plantar fascia tissue you will find yourself walking around even with PF, and more comfortably and safely than you may think! Buying correctly fitted insoles is a good idea not just to stop discomfort and to get the best support for your feet but also buying some that offer too much support or ones that do not give support only in the parts that need it can actually cause your arches to become weaker as they become reliant on the arches to support them, you should only have enough arch support to correct any misalignment’s and to help support the support you already have that is why getting exactly fitted custom insoles is actually a bad idea as they are fitted to give you all the support you need which is not a good idea because you do not want that, this also means you will save a quickly bucks as custom insoles will easily set you back quite a bit of money. There is a huge selection of insoles available today that have been designed specifically for plantar fasciiits, one choice is nuovahealth where you can find some good ones.