Foot Pain

Happy Tuesday! Dr. Kelly here. Are you having foot pain?

Some typical problems of your feet are Morton’s neuroma, bunions, plantar fasciitis, and toe curling.

When you sleep, your feet flex forward and point.

When this happens, the Achilles tendon and plantar fascia are in a shortened position for the hours you are asleep.

When you wake up in the morning and put your foot on the floor, these tendons are getting stretched and can cause pain.

Plantar fascia is the connective tissue that acts as a stabilizer and maintains the integrity of the arch of the foot.

Plantar fasciitis is a condition wherein the plantar fascia is pulling on the periosteum at the calcaneus therefore causing inflammation and pain.

Typically, you will have pain in your heel. The pain can move down the entire bottom of your foot.

Morton’s neuroma is when you have pain typically between the 3rd and 4th toe. It is around the ball of your foot. You can feel the pain on the bottom or the top.

It is a thickening of the tissue around the nerve causing pain.

Reduced movement around a nerve can result in abnormal wear, which may irritate the nerve and lead to pain.

I adjust to get motion and nerve input in between the toe joints.

What about bunions? It is when the big toe gets pushed to the side.

Again, keeping motion in that big toe ensures we can keep it flexible.

And then there is curling of the toes when the toes start to curl in.

Same thing there, need to keep motion in the joints.

What do all of these conditions have in common?

We can adjust the foot in each of these conditions!

You could need an adjustment in your neck just because your feet do not have the proper support.

Having your foot drop down or rotate out could cause a major imbalance in your body. This could rotate your knee, which then rotates your hip, which puts stress on your pelvis, spine, TMJ, all the way up to your neck!

The orthotics that I recommend are spinal pelvic stabilizers. They provide support to not only your feet, but your spine too!

Your feet are your foundation for the entire body.

Have you seen other people in the office laying on the table with their shoes off? They probably are going to get their feet adjusted.

Here are a few other suggestions to help with foot pain in addition to getting adjusted:

You can roll a frozen plastic water bottle under your foot.

Often forgotten is stretching. Stretching your calf muscles is very important.

I cannot over stress the importance of stretching your calf muscles. We might think about the foot, but the calf muscles are important too.

Let’s also work and strengthen the muscles of the feet.

They are small muscles but take a lot of work to strengthen.

Here is a platform that helps to stretch and strengthen your feet.

This is great for bunions and toe curling.

Adding Red and Infrared light treatments with plantar fasciitis and Morton’s neuroma helps to reduce the inflammation.

Get balanced with your adjustments starting with your custom orthotics in your shoes!

By ordering a custom shoe, you get the brand name quality, and a custom orthotic fit right in.

You may already have a pair of orthotics from your podiatrist. The orthotics here are spine pelvic stabilizers. They are flexible and support all three arches of your foot.