Ive heard a lot of people recently talking about how they are suffering with pain on the underside of their feet, if this has ever affected you read on! In most cases it is being caused by an injury called Plantarfaciitis.

In short this is simply inflammation of your Plantar Facia muscle, a band of tissue that connects from your heel to the middle foot bones. Its main function is to support the arch of your foot however it cant do this alone and will work alongside the arch support in your shoes. Unfortunately in todays world of fashionable foot ware we don’t always wear good supporting shoes. The obvious offenders are high heels however recently flat pump like shoes have become very popular for both sexes leading to an increase in the number of cases of Plantarfaciitis I see in our injury clinic.

Simply put these type of shoes force the Plantar Fascia to work even harder than normal at maintaining a strong arch which is key for ensuring a proper gait (how we walk). The end result is that the Plantar Fascia stretches, tears and becomes very tight causing pain anywhere from the base of the heel to the ball of the foot.

Treatment for this type of injury first of all begins with fixing the cause, so that means limiting the amount of time spent in those offending shoes! Secondly you can take the tension out of the muscle by self massage. A great way to do this is getting hold of a household object such as a rolling pin and, whilst sitting, rolling the arch of the foot over the rolling pin. This will help the muscle stretch out and once again be able to perform its arch support at the level we require every day!

Of course there are many other ways to helps fix this troublesome injury so if you would like more advise then please get in touch!