Are you feeling painful around your feet, especially the heels? If you do, you might suffer from Plantar Fasciitis. It is a condition where there is plantar fascia inflammation on your feet that cause the pain on your heels. Plantar fascia is a collection of foot tissue connected to the tip of the bone near heels and toes. When an inflammation occurs around this tissue, the patient will feel a sharp pain on their heel. The pain is worse when we are walking in the morning.

How Common Is It?
Plantar Fasciitis is a common case for men by the age around 40 to 60 years old. This can also happen to athlete or people who often run. Furthermore, people who are dealing with obesity may suffer from this condition as well. The risk will be higher if they never wear insole orthotic to support their heels.

How to Diagnose It?
To diagnose Plantar Fasciitis, doctor will conduct a physical examination to your heel. If the result is unclear, the doctor might have to continue it with further examination. In this case, they will do X-ray or MRI to your feet. It aims to figure out whether there is another disease or not.

What Are the Symptoms?
The most common symptom of Plantar Fasciitis is the sharp pain centered in the heel area. But, some patients also feel the pain in the middle of the feet. The kind of pain that we will get from this condition is like a piercing or burning sensation.

As we have mentioned before, the pain can be worse particularly when we are walking right after waking up in the morning. The same situation also happens when we stand too long, stand up after sitting, tiptoe, or walk down the stairs. Sometimes the pain can spread from the heel to toes followed by swelling or bruises.

What Are the Causes?
This condition emerges because of the pressure on plantar fascia. The pressure can come from walking, running, or standing for too long. Continuous pressure will result injury or small rip on the tissue which cause the sharp pain. Besides the pressure, wearing shoes that do not fit with our feet can be another cause of the condition. Hence, make sure to only wear a pair of shoes which feel really comfortable for your feet. Moreover, it also must have a proper insole orthotic so it can support the heels quite well.

There are other factors that can increase the risk of getting Plantar Fasciitis. Those are:
• It commonly happens to people within age range from 40 to 60 years old
• Obesity can cause excessive pressure to plantar fascia
• Sports like marathon, balet, or aerobics are other factors that cause excessive pressure
• Certain professions like factory worker, army, or teacher has a risk to suffer from this condition since those jobs requires the person to stand for a long time
• Other diseases like ankylosing spondylitis and reactive arthritis can trigger the condition to emerge

Plantar Fasciitis Treatment at Home
Luckily, Plantar Fasciitis is very easy to treat. Most of the patients can get cured within a few months only with home treatment. Here are several tips of Plantar Fasciitis treatment you can try at home.
• One of the best treatments for this condition is to simply rest your feet a lot. You have to limit your activities that require you to stand for too long. The less pressure you get, the faster you will be fully recovered. Moreover, if you are doing sports, make sure to do it on soft ground like grass area instead of on concrete surface
• While resting your feet, you must not forget to do stretching regularly. Stretch your calf and toes all day long so it can relax your ligament. Moreover, it can also strengthen the muscle around the arch of the sole. That will reduce the pain
• To remind you, this condition involves inflammation. To treat this problem, you can rub your heel with ice. Not only can it relieve the pain, but also reduce the inflammation. For better Plantar Fasciitis treatment, you can massage the arch of the sole while resting your heel with ice
• Besides using ice, you can consume painkiller like Ibuprofen or aspirin to reduce the inflammation. Make sure to eat something before taking the pill. Alternatively, you can apply a cream all over your feet

If none of the Plantar Fasciitis treatment above solve your problem, you might want to consider to meet a physiotherapist. They will help you by providing a simple massage or workout to treat your condition. In worst case, a surgery might be necessary. Fortunately, only 5 out of 100 patients go through such treatment.

How to Prevent Plantar Fasciitis
Although we already learn Plantar Fasciitis treatment, it is much better to conduct the prevention measure. Here are a few things you can do for that purpose.
• Wear walking shoes for Plantar Fasciitis
. There are several shoes specially designed for this condition. This kind of footwear usually has proper insoles which can support your feet really well. Orthofeet is one of the best brands you can try on. They sell various shoes or sandals that ensure the comfort of your feet.
• Avoid walking in barefoot even if you are at home. You can buy a pair of shoes or slippers for home. This allows you to treat your feet properly
• Previously, we have mentioned that pressure is the main cause of the condition. The pressure mostly occurs due to overweight issue. That’s why it is important to lose your weight. You can start doing a healthy diet and exercises so you can get a good number of weight that suits your height and age

That’s all we can share about Plantar Fasciitis. If you are suffering from this issue, you can try the Plantar Fasciitis treatment we listed above. Of course you will still need to consult about it with an orthopedist.

Author's Bio: 

professional blogger and writter