HOW TO TREAT FOOT PAIN AND PLANTAR FASCIITIS

My Foot Hurts: Plantar Fasciitis and Other Arch Pains
By Julie , LMT

You feel it coming on gradually. First your arch just doesn’t feel “right”. Then it starts to hurt, but not every time you run; and finally your foot is hurting all the time. If you’re an athlete you probably do what most athletes do when faced with pain – you ignore it. Then eventually you can’t ignore it any more, it’s like a knife being jabbed into your arch with every step.
Or, maybe you have never run a step in your life, so you don’t know the medical term for arch pain. You just know that your feet hurt and it’s uncomfortable to walk for any distance, and driving seems to make it worse.

Most people, including too many medical professionals, don’t realize that foot pain is frequently coming from outside the foot. The muscles of your lower leg actually are there to move your ankle and foot, not to move your lower leg (that comes from your upper leg).

The reason is simple. Muscles originate in one place, they merge into a tendon that crosses over a joint, and then the tendon inserts into a point on the other side of the joint. When the muscle pulls, the tendon tightens and the joint moves, but if the muscle is tight it will continue pulling on the joint even when you don’t want it to move. In the case of the lower leg muscles and the foot, the muscles are pulling your foot up from the ground, but you are keeping it down and causing the tendons to put a strain on the insertion points.

How the Muscles Get Strained

Every time you take a step you are using all of the muscles of your lower leg. If you walk a lot, or you are a runner, you are causing a repetitive strain on the muscle fibers. Also, while driving your car your foot is picked up in the front to go from the gas to the brake (tibialis anterior) and then you press down on the gas pedal (calf muscles). You do this over an over until you have strain the muscle fibers. Eventually the fibers shorten due to a phenomenon called muscle memory.

Muscle memory will hold your muscles in the shortened position even when you don’t need them contracted. This puts pressure on the insertion point, in this case, the arch.

Arch Pain

The two primary muscles that cause arch pain are the tibialis anterior and the peroneals. They originate at the top of the lower leg, merge into tendons where your ankle begins to slim, and then insert into the bottom of your foot.

The tibialis anterior goes along the outside of your shin bone, crosses over the front of your ankle and then inserts into your arch. When it contracts normally you lift up the inside of your foot so you are resting on the outside of your foot.

The peroneals originate at the top/outside of your lower leg, run down the leg and merge into a tendon that goes behind the outside of your ankle and inserts in two places; the outside of your foot, and under your arch to the inside of your foot. When it contracts normally you pull up the outside of your foot so you are resting on your big toe.

Consider the analogy of pulling your hair. If you pull it hard, your head hurts. If you pull it on both sides of your head, you’re really in pain and you aren’t turning your head in either direction. It’s the same with these muscles, when they are pulling hard and you aren’t lifting your foot in the direction they are pulling, your arch will hurt. In this case the two muscles are pulling your foot in opposite directions so you’re feeling pain coming from two different angles.

There are other muscles in the arch and they are also being strained. Plus the calf muscles can be pulling on your heel bone and causing the bones to be pulled in different directions, also causing arch pain. In the case of plantar fasciitis it is usual to have these two muscles causing the majority of the pain.

An Easy Treatment that Works

The goal with this self-treatment is to force the toxins out of the muscle fibers, drawing in blood to nourish the muscles. As the blood fills the muscle, the fibers lengthen and the strain is removed from the arch.

Begin by treating the tibialis anterior on the front of your leg.

#1. Kneel on the floor and put a ball just outside of your shin bone.

#2. Move your leg forward so the ball rolls along the outside of your shin bone.

Then treat the peroneals on the outside of your lower leg. If you are flexible, after treating the tibialis anterior you can lean over toward the outside, then balance on the ball while you draw our leg so the ball rolls down the outside of your lower leg. Or, sit on the floor or a bed and position your leg as shown in picture #3. While using either a dowel or a length of PVC pipe, slide the pipe from just above your ankle bone to just below your knee joint.

#3. Using the dowel or the piece of PVC pipe, put pressure on the outside of your leg and slide along the peroneals muscle from your knee to above your ankle bone.

The treatments will feel sore but that’s because you’re forcing lactic acid through the muscle fibers, and acid burns. But, it’s better to have the lactic acid out of the muscles and fill the fibers with blood, plus the lymphatic system will pick up the toxins and eliminate them from your body.

There are several other treatments that work to eliminate arch pain and plantar fasciitis, but these will get you started and may be all that is necessary to eliminate the problem completely.