What Are Your Options for Heel Pain Treatment?
If you have been living with persistent heel pain, the first thing on your mind is likely just wanting it gone!
The good news is that most heel pain is highly treatable. More than 90 percent of cases can be resolved within just a few months – and almost always with conservative methods, too. Surgery rarely needs to be considered.
That said, there is not one form of treatment that will always be effective for every case of heel pain out there. That’s because heel pain can stem from a variety of different conditions and factors. To effectively treat someone’s heel pain, we must determine the root causes and address them with a direct plan.
A heel pain treatment plan can consist of one or more methods, ranging from traditional therapies to advanced technologies. Your plan may not be the same as someone else’s, but we always make our recommendations based on our findings through examination and an understanding of your personal goals.
Here are just a few of the options we may consider. Whatever course of treatment we may recommend, however, it is always essential to get the ball rolling on care sooner than later! The sooner heel pain conditions are identified and treated, the faster and more effectively treatments tend to provide results.
Changes in Footwear
If your current shoes aren’t providing the proper support and cushioning for your feet’s needs, they could be aggravating vulnerable areas of your foot. Little arch support, for instance, can add stress to the plantar fascia, eventually leading to heel pain (plantar fasciitis).
A switch to shoes that better accommodate the structure and needs of your feet can make a big difference. We can recommend ideal types of footwear for your day-to-day needs, and we also carry medically designed footwear at our office. Our Pure Stride Sandals, for example, provide quality support that’s difficult to find in most open-toed shoes.
Orthotics
In some cases, a change in footwear alone may not be able to provide the specific type of cushioning and corrective support your feet need. Orthotics can be a great help in these situations, as they can be better tailored or exactly customized to the needs of your feet.
If orthotics are a consideration, we will typically start out with prefabricated inserts. These are not just the types you can buy off the shelf at the store, however. They are higher quality, more durable, and we can properly adjust their fit here in the office.
If even more precision is required, we may upgrade to custom orthotics. They are prescribed specifically to the shape of your feet, much like prescription eyewear is made for only one pair of eyes.
Orthotics will not correct an abnormality in foot structure or gait that may be causing heel pain, but they can provide the support and proper redistribution of weight to negate the symptoms it causes.
Night Splints
With conditions such as plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendinitis, pain is often worse after the affected area has been in a resting position for an extended period of time, such as while you sleep.
Night splints counter this factor by holding the plantar fascia, Achilles tendon, and/or calf muscle in a stretched position, resulting in less pain when you begin moving again.
Cortisone Injections
When heel pain is intense, a cortisone injection can provide a period of lasting relief. These injections are not intended as a long-term solution, but can be very helpful when needed.
A cortisone shot may be administered using ultrasound guidance, so we can get the injection to the exact spot where it will be the most effective.
MLS Laser Therapy
Laser therapy is an advanced form of treatment that can be particularly effective when heel pain is based in a soft tissue injury (and the majority of them are). This form of treatment can not only help relieve pain, but accelerate the recovery as well.
MLS laser therapy is scheduled over a number of sessions, with the positive effects of each successive session stacking. It has long been a recommended treatment among performance athletes, but can be beneficial for many different types of patients.
Take the First Steps Toward Lasting Heel Pain Relief
A heel pain treatment plan may incorporate one of the methods above. It may also incorporate more than one of these methods, or none at all in lieu of a different form of treatment altogether. Our recommendations entirely depend on a physical examination of your condition and discussing with you how your heel pain is affecting your life.
We are more than happy to discuss all of your potential treatment options with you, and answer any questions you might have about them. We want to ensure that, however you choose to move forward on addressing your heel pain, you can do so in full confidence.
Call our Dearborn office at (313) 582-6222 to schedule an appointment with us. We have in-office appointments using strict guidelines to reduce COVID exposures risks, and we also have telehealth appointments available if you wish to conduct a consultation with us remotely. We are glad to accommodate you as best we can either way.
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