Putting Your Foot Down On Foot Heel Pain
You see, like many people, I used to drive my car to the nearest train station, walk from the car to the platform, travel to work by train, walk on hard concrete pavements to my place of work, walk around on those same hard surfaces throughout the day up and down the city visiting clients and doing business, going for a lunch time "health walk" (yes you've guessed it) up and back along those pavements and in the evenings going home by the same route as I did coming in. This was five days a week, 48 weeks a year over many years. I did all of this in hard heeled business shoes and not in shock absorbing walking or running shoes. I kept this routine up day in day out without any apparent signs of heel pain.
When I first noticed that things weren't quite right in the foot department I recall feeling a mild stiffness at the back of my lower legs and rear of my right foot. It didn't worry me too much to begin with and I just waited for it to pass thinking that it was simply a transient discomfort. Waiting I did but pass it didn't. In fact the condition started to worsen to the point where the stiffness turned into a slight limp and eventually a hobble. Not content with plateauing there, the heel of my left foot began to ache as well.
This made walking a sometimes slow and painful chore. It was at this point that I decided to consult my family doctor about the problem. He advised me to apply an anti-inflammatory gel or cream to help relieve the pain and suggested I enquire about using orthotic shoe inserts to assist with heel lift when walking. I followed the doctor's advice and felt a slight improvement from using the orthotics. The anti-inflammatory gel didn't seem to make any difference no matter how often I applied it.
This left me wondering what else could be done to further improve the condition. I therefore decided to undertake my own research of heel pain: what it is, its causes, who it affects, available treatments and potential cures, if any. This involved burning the midnight oil over many nights reading books, wading through journals and conducting lots of Internet searches. Some of the material I uncovered was useful, some wasn't. Ultimately, I had to sift the information and decide what the good advice was. More importantly I needed to establish what would work best for me. I therefore tried to "cherry pick" the bits of advice and tips that I felt would give me the best possible chance of remediation.
When I first noticed that things weren't quite right in the foot department I recall feeling a mild stiffness at the back of my lower legs and rear of my right foot. It didn't worry me too much to begin with and I just waited for it to pass thinking that it was simply a transient discomfort. Waiting I did but pass it didn't. In fact the condition started to worsen to the point where the stiffness turned into a slight limp and eventually a hobble. Not content with plateauing there, the heel of my left foot began to ache as well.
This made walking a sometimes slow and painful chore. It was at this point that I decided to consult my family doctor about the problem. He advised me to apply an anti-inflammatory gel or cream to help relieve the pain and suggested I enquire about using orthotic shoe inserts to assist with heel lift when walking. I followed the doctor's advice and felt a slight improvement from using the orthotics. The anti-inflammatory gel didn't seem to make any difference no matter how often I applied it.
This left me wondering what else could be done to further improve the condition. I therefore decided to undertake my own research of heel pain: what it is, its causes, who it affects, available treatments and potential cures, if any. This involved burning the midnight oil over many nights reading books, wading through journals and conducting lots of Internet searches. Some of the material I uncovered was useful, some wasn't. Ultimately, I had to sift the information and decide what the good advice was. More importantly I needed to establish what would work best for me. I therefore tried to "cherry pick" the bits of advice and tips that I felt would give me the best possible chance of remediation.
Comments
Post a Comment