Chronic heel pain

Foot care
1

Hi all,

Thanks for taking the time to read my message.

Feeling clueless and desperate, so needed to write it off and maybe get some feedback.

I'm 27yo now and for over 2 years I've been having heel pain. It started after running a couple of miles with a lot of uphill parts and sore achilles tendons after a couple of days. Ignorant of achilles injuries, I continued training hard until the pain was to much to bear. 

What followed was months of

> manual/friction therapy

> extra corporeal shock wave therapy

> NSAIDS (until it ruined my stomach)

> physical therapy

The pain evolved from being in my achilles to more on the inside of my heel.

Since medical imagery never revealed anything, I had an EEG.

The foot specialist examining me saw a good enough reason to go ahead and open my foot up to perform a tarsal tunnel release surgery.

But after 2 weeks of a half-open cask and some additional weeks of recovery, the pain was still there.

Eventually going into taking natural anti-inflammatories (think tumeric) and just trying to go easy, the pain kind of evolved again to being more on the bottom of my foot now close to and on the heel.

Having had custom orthortics (which didn't help), acupuncture, some more physical therapy, I'm just completely lost..

This influences my life so much.. I'm in an active job, -was- an complete sports lover, loved to go walking, go out in the weekends.. It's all accompanied with a lot of pain, making me miserable and desperate.

Hoping to hear from someone who maybe has some experience to share.

2

On returning home my right foot continued to get worse...getting out of bed was excruciating every day, and it took hours for my foot to be mobile again. My father, and various friends, told me it sounded like classic Plantar Fasciitis. Eventually I went to the doctor and told him what I thought I had and, without checking me out, he said "There's an injection for that" and went straight in with the needle! Never known pain like it (everyone else I know who has suffered this condition was warned off this treatment by their own doctors!). I have never seen that locum since, but I have to say that, after 3 days of the worst pain ever and barely being able to walk, the cortisone did the trick and the Plantar Fasciitis just vanished (my left heel was developing it but the injection pain scared it better!).

A few months later I went on to develope other problems with my right foot that have plagued me for 2 1/2 years now, including tears to the Plantar Fascia and a fractured 4th metatarsal, and my weird bouts of burning pain and stinging nettle feelings stump everyone - I was recently discharged from hospital visits but my podiatrist is still concerned that my pain levels are too high and the 4th metatarsal is still swollen. She and I both think it could be Complex Regional Pain Syndrome - that is the only condition that matches my symptoms.

Through all this - 3 years of problems now - I have come to understand how complex our feet are! Never give up on finding answers though.

Jess80 - what are your supplements? I hate taking any tablets unless I absolutely have to, so I am willing to give natural remedies a try!

3

For some reason, my first paragraph seems to have been deleted!

The start of my Plantar Fasciitis seems to stem from a lot of unacustomed walking over rough ground in trekking sandals. It was the first day of a Cornish holiday and we walked the length of Boscastle, right up and over the rocks at the end of the harbour. By the time I was back in the village, and after sitting with an icecream for a while, I could barely stand, let alone walk (I was determined to walk all the way up the other side of the inlet, though, which probably didn't do me much good!). I'm a keen photographer and will ignore pain until after I've photographed everything!

4

Hi there.  Just thought I would tell you about my experience with plantar fasciitis.  This condition caused me severe pain in the heels of both feet.  I had a steroid injection in the one that was the most severe and I have to say that although the injection itself was quite painful for a few minutes it certainly put the pain away completely.  I have once again got the pain back in both feet and find that by stretching out the backs of the calves it alows me to get my feet on the ground in the mornings.  Another thing that helped me is proper shoes.  I have spent a fortune on trainers and shoes and none of the padded footwear helped in fact I think it made it worse.  I have now gone back to wearing my proper closed in footwear, I am wearing shoes by Remonte Dordorf and Reiker.  They are a mary jane style with a heel of around 1 inch.  This shoe holds my heel firmly in place and gives it proper support.  For me the use of orthotics with arch support only increased the pain.  Although the pain is still there, it is very much reduced and I can walk around happliy without looking like an 80 tear old woman.  I hope this helps