Facebook Live 4th July 2019
We will frequently get patients coming into our clinic saying that they have a heel spur and that this is causing their pain however this turns out to be a myth. What is causing the pain is the fort tissue structure that is sitting in front of the spur known as the plantar fascia. This is a ligament like structure that starts at the base of the heel and extends to the balls of the feet. If we look at the foot side on, the plantar fascia acts as an elastic band. When we are standing and body weight together with gravity are added through this structure it stretches. Our bodies response to prevent this structure from tearing is to chase this structure which creates the nasty and scary looking heel spur that we can see of X- rays.
Years ago when Doctors were surgically removing this structure. They found that not all cases were fixing the pain, and actually there were more cases where the pain became worse as it had been stirred up for the procedure. They found that the inflammation, scar tissue and degeneration can be present a few millimeters in front of the spur area on the plantar fascia