Remedies for Heel Pain
Have you ever experienced heel pain? You understand how frustrating it can be to move around comfortably. It takes away your concentration and may even affect your productivity if it includes a lot of walking. You also need to change the shoes you wear and may affect your physical workout routine. Heel pain may occur due to the type of shoes you wear or medical conditions that affect your bones. Your feet help you balance the weight of your body, and when one part is affected, you encounter problems. The distribution of pressure on your body may shift to other parts of the feet, and cause your condition to worsen. It benefits you to treat the disease immediately you feel it, to avoid dealing with complicated feet defects. If you experience complications on your feet, visit our New York plantar fasciitis facilities.
Cold Compress
The pain on your heel may become too much, and you have no option of seeking immediate medical attention. You can reduce the effect of the pain by using a cold compress to numb the pain area. Cold therapy uses freezing temperatures to make the nerves on your heel area ineffective. Numbing the nerves makes the communication process to the brain weak, thus reducing the pain feeling. However, it would help if you did not rely on cold therapy to heal the pain. It only numbs the pain but does not treat the condition. It would help if you visited a doctor to examine the cause of the pain and provide long term treatment. You can use an icepack wrapped in clothing, or by cold compress in drug stores.
Medications
The feeling of pain on your heel results from inflammation of tissues. Tissues become inflamed when injured or when infected. Buying over the counter pain relievers or anti-inflammation drugs helps to reduce the swelling. When tissues become inflamed, they press on your nerve endings that send a signal to the brain on the affected area. Reducing the inflammation reduces the nerve ending signals from communicating pain sensations to the brain.
Stretches
When your body remains in an inactive state for some time, some of your joints become frigid and may need exercise to regain functionality. You can massage and stretch your feet to restore their active motion. It helps to exercise the joints and increase blood circulation. Improving blood circulation in the foot area helps to increase the healing process and result in flexibility. You can implement calf and foot flexes to ease the pain.
Steroid Injection
When your pain persists, you can go for a corticosteroid injection that helps to relieve the pain. It involves receiving a numbing injection around the heel area, followed by a corticosteroid injection on the sides of the heal. The infusion helps but has a limitation on the frequency of injections. You may have to look for other alternatives to remedy the pain if it does not stop.
Surgery
Heel pain occurs because of various causes. When the heel pain does not heal from the less invasive methods, you should consider surgery to offer long term relief. The surgery conducted depends on the cause of your pain. If you suffer from heel spurs, the operation helps to remove it and reduce the pressure on the ligaments and plantar fascia. The procedure has the risk of causing nerve damage and relapse of the heel spur. Seek an expert for the operation to reduce the chances of complications to the bare minimum.