Heel pain is a common symptom that has many possible causes. Although heel pain sometimes is caused by a systemic (total body) illness, such as rheumatoid arthritis or gout, it usually is a local condition that affects only the foot.
This information is about heel pain that gives you soreness or tenderness on the bottom of your heel and the sole of your foot. Doctors call this plantar fasciitis. The plantar fascia is a band of tissue that stretches from your heel to the ball of your foot. A pad of fat in your heel, over the plantar fascia, helps absorb the shock when you walk. Older people are more likely to get heel pain than children and young adults. This might be because the plantar fascia doesn’t stretch so well as people get older. The fat pad on the heel may also get thinner and not absorb so much of the shock as you walk.You might also get a spur of bone growing where the plantar fascia joins your heel bone. This can make your heel painful. But doctors aren’t really sure why some people get this pain. Some people think their heel hurts because the plantar fascia is inflamed from too much heavy pounding (for example, from running on a hard surface).
Symptoms
The heel can be painful in many different ways, depending on the cause:
- Plantar fasciitis Plantar fasciitis commonly causes intense heel pain along the bottom of the foot during the first few steps after getting out of bed in the morning. This heel pain often goes away once you start to walk around, but it may return in the late afternoon or evening.
- Heel spur Although X-ray evidence suggests that about 10% of the general population has heels spurs, many of these people do not have any symptoms. In others, heel spurs cause pain and tenderness on the undersurface of the heel that worsen over several months.
- Calcaneal apophysitis In a child, this condition causes pain and tenderness at the lower back portion of the heel. The affected heel is often sore to the touch but not obviously swollen.
- Bursitis Bursitis involving the heel causes pain in the middle of the undersurface of the heel that worsens with prolonged standing and pain at the back of the heel that worsens if you bend your foot up or down.
- Pump bump This condition causes a painful enlargement at the back of the heel, especially when wearing shoes that press against the back of the heel.
- Local bruises Heel bruises, like bruises elsewhere in the body, may cause pain, mild swelling, soreness and a black-and-blue discoloration of the skin.
- Achilles tendonitis This condition causes pain at the back of the heel where the Achilles tendon attaches to the heel. The pain typically becomes worse if you exercise or play sports, and it often is followed by soreness, stiffness and mild swelling.
- Trapped nerve A trapped nerve can cause pain, numbness or tingling almost anywhere at the back, inside or undersurface of the heel. In addition, there are often other symptoms such as swelling or discoloration if the trapped nerve was caused by a sprain, fracture or other injury.
Treatments work
The pain in your heel should go away by itself with time. But if you’re in a lot of pain, you may want treatment. There are different things you can try, but there’s not much research to show whether they work. Things you can do for yourself . To relieve your pain, you might try:
- A warm footbath or heat treatment
- A painkiller, such as paracetamol or ibuprofen
- Resting your foot. Try sports that don’t involve putting too much weight on your foot, such as cycling and swimming, instead of running.
Some research shows that doing exercises to stretch the plantar fascia three times a day for eight weeks can reduce heel pain. This is what you do:
• Sit down and cross your affected leg over your other leg
• Place your fingers across the base of your toes
• Pull the toes back until you feel a stretch in the arch of your foot.
More research is needed to find out how much stretching exercises help with heel pain and if there are any risks. Research shows that doing exercises and using a heel pad or custom-made insole in your shoes may relieve heel pain more than just doing the stretching exercises.
Supports for your feet
There’s some research that insoles, heel pads and heel cups can help you move around more easily and reduce pain in your heel. A foot doctor (podiatrist) can have an insole made to fit your foot. This can give your foot some support, reduce pressure and help relieve the pain from your heel.You wear the insole inside your shoe. You can also get a heel pad or heel cup to cushion and support your feet. A podiatrist can tell you what sort might suit you best. Or you can buy cushioning for shoes in a pharmacy. Heel cups and heel pads can be made from materials like rubber, felt, foam, elastic, sponge and silicone.
You can wear a splint at night to support your foot at an angle that might relieve your heel pain. A podiatrist can advise you on the type of splint that might help. But there’s no evidence to show that splints can help.
What was happen to me?
My heel pain was get better by itself. But it takes several months for me to get back to normal. Some people have heel pain that doesn’t go away for a few years.
This information however does not replace medical advice. If you have a medical problem please see your doctor.
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