My son has decided to go for a boot camp. But he is experiencing severe pain in the heels of both of his feet. He says the pain is so intense that it feels like a lighted match is being applied. It is often relieved by sitting or lying down. He doesn't have any redness or swelling in that area. Have not injured it anyway nor have been wearing any kind of uncomfortable shoes to cause the pain. It hurts more when he walks. When I talked about this to a friend of mine, he suggested to take deep tissue massage from a clinic in Toronto. Does anybody here know the recovery period of physiotherapy treatment? Please share
< Message edited by Randy Moore -- August 19, 2017 2:46:34 PM >
Posts: 1166
Joined: March 15, 2006
Status: offline
deep tissue massage will not accelerate the recovery. See a physical therapist who treats feet frequently. Usually it is poor flexibility, bad balance, or inadequate shoes that is the cause of the problem.
It sounds like your son's calves are too tight. When there's too much tension, it will pull from the anchor points like the heel and the knee. The pain alleviates when he sits because it shortens the muscle and aggravates it when he lengthens that muscle like when he's standing.
Just have him do some regular calf stretches and see if it relieves the pain.
Posts: 1248
Joined: February 27, 2005
Status: offline
Sarah, bilateral heel pain is better known as sciatica, or referred pain associated with the larger nerve arising from the lower parts of the lumbar spine. This means that the likelihood of there being something wrong with the legs or feet are vanishingly low, which also means that any treatment of the legs or feet will not resolve this problem. Your son would benefit from manual therapy applied specificaly to the lowest vertebral joints, L5S1, with a hands on method , mobilisation. You will need to ask around for someone who does this, as the technique is not universaly taught across disciplines , including PT in the US. One tp three treatments to L5S1 would commonly resolve this otherwise persistant problem, with good long term benefit, provided the therapist was skilled in mobilisation of spinal joints. Cheers