Plantar fasciitis Treat in Rome, GA

Why Plantar Fasciitis Pain Comes Back in Rome If Untreated

You've tried icing. You tried the plantar fasciitis stretches on YouTube. Or you've purchased those gel heel inserts from the pharmacy near Shorter Avenue and worn them for a bit. They help. For awhile, anyway. Then you step out of bed the next morning or after a long night and that stabbing pain in your heel is as painful as ever.

We hear this all the time.

Plantar fasciitis treatment in Rome gets delayed often because this condition often seems to "resolve on its own" for a while. Maybe you go weeks, or even months without the pain, so you assume you don't need treatment. You're partially right. Inflammation of the plantar fascia on the sole of your foot often does heal itself if the trigger is removed. But more often that is not the cause of the pain or injury.

That's one reason why many Rome patients don't realize their heel pain is actually a result of tight calves, limited ankle mobility, or a spine or pelvic misalignment that is throwing force and impact across your feet with every step. Taping the area and icing it is a band aid that covers up the symptom but doesn't address the problem itself.

The problem is that these things often continue to cause micro-injury and inflammation:

• Standing on concrete or tile flooring with little support
• Putting more stress on the non-injured foot by "limping," which often causes new problems
• For some plantar fasciitis treatments in Rome, avoiding pain at all costs, which can make morning pain feel "fine" after a bit of movement
• Relying on rest alone to heal tissue that has been deteriorating for months or years

There are an estimated two million plantar fasciitis treatments performed each year, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons [1]. There are thousands more who don't get diagnosed, which shows how common this is and how often the problem is not resolved naturally.

In our Rome office, if a person doesn't treat it early on, it can be harder to treat. Plantar fasciitis treatment doesn't work nearly as well when the problem has resulted in chronic inflammation, scarring and a thickening of the plantar fascia on the sole of the foot. Often our Rome patients wait years to address it, and say the same thing. "I wish I would have come in sooner."

Don’t Wait: Five Plantar Fasciitis Symptoms You Should Be Aware Of

That sharp plantar fasciitis pain in your heel the moment you step out of bed in the morning isn't going away on its own.

This is a plantar fasciitis symptom common to patients from Rome. Many just wait out the first weeks or months, hoping it goes away. We see people change shoes regularly, buy gel insoles from the pharmacy near Shorter Avenue, change their routines and avoid walking as much as they can. Finally, one Tuesday they barely make it from the parking lot to their desk, and then pick up the phone. But the sooner you get in, the faster we can help resolve this.

Below, we list a few telltale signs you've waited long enough to come in:

• Your first couple steps out of bed feel like walking on shards of glass
• The pain subsides a bit mid-day, but comes back once you've been sitting for a little while
• You start altering the way you walk in order to reduce weight on your heel
• OTC pain medication isn't doing as much of a reduction anymore
• Your other foot is starting to hurt due to favoring one side

That last one is an important one. If you're transferring weight to relieve pressure on one foot, you're overloading the rest of your musculoskeletal chain, including your knees, hips, and lower back. We even regularly get referred in for our Rome plantar fasciitis treatment center for patients who are also experiencing some lower back pain. More often than not, these problems have the same origin.

So just how long is too long? According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, most cases heal well with conservative care when they're addressed as soon as they appear. But as the inflammation goes on for months, it takes longer to resolve. This is because the fascia becomes thicker and stiffer, scar tissue begins to form, and your gait changes.

You don't need to be in severe pain to deserve relief. If you have heel pain and it's impacting how you move your feet through your day here in Rome, that's a reason in itself. And if you've been enduring it for more than two or three weeks without improvement, your body is speaking to you. You've needed more than rest for a while now.

Don't let a problem that could be fixed right now develop into a more severe problem later on.

What To Expect During Your First Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Appointment

You come in. We talk. This is where it all begins.

No forty-page clipboard paperwork form. No waiting in a sterile waiting room. When you walk in our doors at our Rome plantar fasciitis treatment center, you sit down, we sit down, and you explain what's going on with your feet. Where does it hurt? When did it start? Is it worse in the morning or toward the end of your day? We ask a lot of questions because they influence our next steps.

Then it's hands-on time. We check a few specific things:

• Your ability to move your feet in multiple planes of motion
• Areas of pain you have when we palpate the plantar fascia
• Your gait, posture, and foot and ankle alignment
• Issues in the lower back and hips because issues elsewhere in the body are often related to foot pain

Chances are, your foot doctor has already tried ice, new shoes, stretches you found on YouTube, and nothing is working! This is a very common presentation. Most people are surprised to find plantar fasciitis doesn't happen in the foot by itself. In the West Rome patients we treat, we've found tight calves and Achilles tendons that pull on the fascia, a slightly rotated pelvis, or a compensation from an old injury. You have pain in the foot, but the problem is elsewhere. Once we're done examining you, we'll walk you through our findings in plain, layman's terms. If you're a good candidate for shockwave therapy, for example, we explain why. If a chiropractic adjustment of your ankle, pelvis, or lower back could help your plantar fasciitis, we can tell you about that too. You're going to know what to expect before we begin treatment. A first visit generally lasts 30 to 45 minutes. Some patients receive initial treatment on that first visit, depending on our findings. But you'll know what's causing your pain and what we're going to do about it. Connect with a chiropractor to get started.

Chiropractic Options for Plantar Fasciitis

Most people don't turn to their Rome chiropractor for help with plantar fasciitis. But the foot doesn't function by itself. It's connected to the ankle, knee, hip, and spine, and problems in any of these areas can result in increased strain on the plantar fascia. Rather than just treating the pain and inflammation in your foot, we treat your entire foot and the kinetic chain of your body. Your chiropractic plan will be unique, based on our specific findings in your case. Depending on the results of your exam, we may incorporate some, or all, of the following tools into your treatment plan:

Shockwave therapy is one of the treatments most frequently utilized in plantar fasciitis patients. According to the National Library of Medicine, extracorporeal shockwave therapy is an effective treatment for chronic cases of plantar fasciitis unresponsive to rest and stretching alone [2]. And the results from JOSPT are backed up by the shockwave therapy treatments our staff has administered for patients in our West Rome clinic.

You may not realize it, but an imbalance in your pelvis or lower back can cause you to place more weight on one foot during your normal walk, which results in plantar fasciitis. We see it every week. They will walk in thinking their problem is isolated to their foot. We check their spine; pelvic shift is what they have been dealing with all this time. The problem that was affecting their gait. So we adjust the spine; we treat the foot; we calm it down with cold laser treatment. Then we give you a rehab program that you can follow. Not a handout that will get left in the car. We will walk you through the movements. What we are aiming for is not just pain relief, it is making sure your return to Rome is pain-free and comfortable.

How to Prevent Future Occurrences of Plantar Fasciitis

Once treatment is underway and pain has subsided, we remind Rome area patients that what you do in the weeks following your last visit plays a significant role in long-term results. Plantar fasciitis has a high recurrence rate. Patients get treated, the pain recedes, and then three or four months later, they are again hobbling out of bed in pain. This recurrence is entirely preventable. But it takes a little work on the part of the patient.

Daily Habits that Support Good Feet

Shoes are a big factor. The most common cause of recurring plantar fasciitis cases we see is worn-out shoes. If you're seeing a flat, smooth bottom or a collapsed heel cup on your shoe, it's time to get new ones. If you live in Rome or spend all your time on hard surfaces, it is essential to wear good, supportive footwear. Not trendy, but supportive. And don't forget to stretch. A few simple stretches for the calves and the plantar fascia before putting your foot to the floor in the morning will take only 2 or 3 minutes. We provide home-based, post-treatment rehab exercises to all of our patients.

Ongoing Support Services We can offer

Some patients benefit from periodic maintenance visits. Here's an example of what the follow-up process might look like:

• A return visit 4-6 weeks after your last treatment to reassess tissue response.
• A gait/posture evaluation to monitor for biomechanical drift.
• Cold laser treatments to address the early return of inflammation.

Proper alignment of the body is just as important as foot health. Imbalance in the body (for example, hips, back) can alter the mechanics of how force is transferred throughout the foot with each step. That's why chiropractic care is so important, because it isn't just about the back, it is about protecting the whole kinetic chain. We have Rome area patients who went from struggling for years to running 5k's, 10k's, or even half marathons pain-free. It was the cumulative result of many good decisions supported by chiropractic care. Your feet have brought you to us; we'd be happy to help them bring you out the other side. Have questions about maintenance after your plantar fasciitis treatment is complete?