Plantar Fasciitis: Healing Up Your Heel Pain

Hey, this is Dr. Gangemi, and I’ve got a new Sock Doc video for you here. It’s been several years, almost three, since my last Sock Doc video, and seven years since the original Sock Doc site started as well as my first video on plantar fasciitis. And this video is on that topic, plantar fasciitis. A lot of people have this ailment, this pain in their foot. So, I wanna do a little recap and review and share some, perhaps, some new information to help you with your plantar fascia issues.I have written a new article on the Sock Doc site explaining, actually, why plantar fasciitis, that term is actually incorrect. You have no fascia in the bottom of your foot according to most renowned anatomists. You actually have something called aponeurosis. So, overall, the term plantar fasciitis is the wrong term to use, but you can read more about that on the site. This video is more to show you on how to identify where certain myofascial or trigger points may be that you can use as your own therapy to help yourself or your patients, clients, friends, or whoever who might have plantar fasciitis.

Typically, with plantar fasciitis, you have pain in the bottom of your foot, of your heel, your calcaneus bone. But you can actually have it in your arch, towards the ball of your foot, like where your metatarsals are, which eventually make up your phalanges, your toes. So, you can have… It’s diagnosed as plantar fasciitis anywhere in the bottom of your foot, really doesn’t matter for our purposes. We’re gonna be talking about two main players with this ailment, with this condition. One is your tibialis posterior muscle that helps pronate and supinate your foot properly when you walk, and especially when you run; stabilizes your ankle, super important muscle. And two, your soleus muscle, one of your calf muscles, the lower one underneath your thicker gastroc.

So, your tibialis posterior muscle actually helps join your tibia and your fibula up here in your lower leg, especially at the top portion, in what’s called your interosseous membrane. It really stabilizes this area. So, if we come closer with the video here, you’re going to look for trigger points along the tibia. You wanna get right underneath the bone there and kinda like push up and in into that tibia region. You wanna keep the muscle relaxed, so don’t tense there, and look for trigger points all the way down on the inside of this bone, so kinda like underneath your calf, and all the way down around your medial malleolus, this bone here, and then into your arch here. You might find some tenderness in here in the arch area, where the connective tissue starts to go into the bottom of your foot.

Remember, like I say in most Sock Doc videos and in articles, you stay away from the area where you have pain. So, if you’re having pain in the arch there, or pain in the heel, or wherever it may be, you’re typically only going to irritate it more if you start mashing around in there. A couple other points I wanted to show you that a lot of people have issues with that is good for you to see. One is, on the top here, you wanna try and get underneath towards your knee, where that tibialis posterior originates, and it’s behind your tibia. So, obviously, that’s hard to get to, and you’re not gonna be able to get to right on it. So, you’re gonna kinda go up at an angle here and come right behind the top of the bone and push up towards your knee. So, I am pushing up in here towards like my, what’s called my tibial tuberosity here, this bone that sticks out, where your patellar tendon goes into. So, you’re gonna push up towards this angle, like that, and look for tender areas there.

Also, from the back side, look right behind your fibula bone. This bone that sticks out at the top on the outside of your lower leg, because there’s tibialis posterior muscle attachments there. So, you might have a tender spot right there, and you can see if I put my foot like this, it actually tenses my calf up. So, I don’t want that. I’d want it relaxed, like here, or, you know, if I’m sitting like this. So, you want the muscle relaxed, so look for tender spots in there, like right behind the fibula. Okay? So, that’s for the tibialis posterior.

What you might notice with your tibialis posterior if you’re standing, you might end up doing like this. You might kick your foot out. If you see yourself or note yourself standing like that, you probably have a weakness in your tibialis posterior muscle. You might also develop calluses on the inside of your arches too, if you’re rolling inwards too much when you’re running.

Okay. The next muscle is your soleus, that’s this lower calf muscle, the thinner of the two, underneath your big, more meatier gastroc. The soleus muscle, I discuss it a lot on the Sock Doc site, because it’s implicated with shin splints, Achilles tendinitis, of course, people who get, you know, the pump bumps in back where it catches onto your calcaneus. It makes up a lot of that connective tissue on the bottom of your foot, along with your tibialis posterior muscle. That’s why these are more of that plantar fasciitis-type disorders that people have pain with. So, with your soleus, much more simple to find these trigger points. You’re pretty much gonna go right in the back of your leg, underneath the gastroc here, maybe push up underneath that meaty part a little bit. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to get it like this, it’s more for visualization here for the video, but you’re gonna look all throughout here, maybe squeeze the calf like this, or come here. I’d be doing more like this with my leg up and pushing straight down with my thumbs into the calf area. Perhaps, you know, like pinching my Achilles and then coming down and also looking for areas in the bottom of my foot.

Again, even if my heel is hurting, which is the most common area for plantar fasciitis, I am going to look above in that soleus region, in this case, or down in the…towards the ball of my foot, look for tender areas in there. If I have plantar fasciitis in that area of my foot though, I’m gonna look more proximal, meaning closer, or distal, away from. Okay? And stay off the area where it’s hurting.

Read the article or check out my article on…with the updated article on plantar fasciitis. I’ll show you some other more…some other things you can do and when you want to, perhaps, use a cushion in your shoe to dampen the pain. Of course, why you don’t ever, in my opinion, want to use orthotics, arch supports, or any other supportive device in your footwear to support your dysfunction, and therefore, try to alter your pain pattern only to create other pain later on.

Lots of other videos on the Sock Doc site. Please like and share, and I hope you enjoy this video. Thanks for watching.

Dr. Stephen Gangemi "Sock Doc"

I'm a board-certified chiropractic physician and clinical nutritionist with a passion for true natural health care. I implement dietary & nutritional therapies, exercise & movement practices, and lifestyle changes along with manual therapy techniques to help the body heal and prevent illness and injuries.