Heel pain is a common – but painful – foot condition that many people face. Frequent heel or arch pain is often caused by plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation in the foot. The most common symptoms are stabbing pain, tightness, or aching. Your symptoms may flare up when going from sitting to walking.
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This painful condition can impact your quality of life and ability to do daily activities. The good news is that physical therapy can treat plantar fasciitis. In fact, it’s the least invasive and most effective treatment. Here’s how physical therapy treats plantar fasciitis.
How PRO Therapy Treats Plantar Fasciitis
Identify Causes and Triggers
The very first step of your physical therapy process with PRO Therapy is figuring out what caused your plantar fasciitis. Many factors could be contributing, such as foot structure, improper foot support, extended activity, and uneven walking/running surfaces.
The advantage of speaking with a Doctor of Physical Therapy at PRO Therapy, is that we are experts in assessing plantar fasciitis and will help you discern the root causes of your symptoms.
Additionally, once we know the causes we can easily identify the triggers that are causing your pain to flare up. Knowing your triggers helps you avoid movements in the short term that trigger your pain, and helps us create a long term plan to address these triggers.
Create a Personal Care Plan
Our physical therapy treatment plans for plantar fasciitis are always customized to each person and their lifestyle. Your physical therapist will consider the causes, your triggers, your ability level, and your daily activities to create a care plan.
Often, this includes treatment approaches to reduce pain early in the plan of care that can include soft tissue mobilizations, joint mobilizations, and dry needling. Pairing that with appropriate exercises that may include strengthening, stretching, and balance training that is individualized to your symptoms and needs. These approaches, as well as appropriate modifications are used to reduce irritation with activities such as exercise, morning routines, and other activities, reducing pain in the short term and increasing activity as quickly as possible.
No treatment is a one-size-fits-all solution, so that’s why it’s important to set up an appointment directly with a physical therapist to discuss your options. This includes assessing your range of motion, strength, balance and changes that can be made to reduce symptoms. There are many different experiences with plantar fasciitis, that’s why we create an individual based treatment approach to each patient and tailoring it to your needs.
Your care plan will also include a complimentary foot scan to determine if customized shoe inserts would be beneficial to long term relief. At PRO Therapy, your doctor will help determine if custom foot orthotics are needed during your initial physical therapy evaluation.
Related Content: Learn More About Customized Shoe Inserts
Aim for Long-Term Relief
What makes physical therapy at PRO Therapy such an effective treatment for plantar fasciitis is that we focus on long-term relief, not just alleviating symptoms. By uncovering the root causes and creating treatment plans around them, our physical therapy plans will resolve your heel and/or arch pain in the long term. This helps prevent the need for costly and invasive surgeries down the road with the goal of getting you back to doing the activities you love to do pain-free!
If you want to make physical therapy a success, partnering with one of our physical therapists is going to help you avoid future pain and resolve current pain.
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