Foot tendonitis (tendinitis) can happen to anyone, and usually creates pain and tightness in the arch of your foot, your heel and even your toes. If you have tendonitis you'll usually feel pain located where your injury is and in the surrounding area. You may also suffer from swelling, heat sensation, redness and decreased function in your foot and/or ankle. Severe tendon pain (possibly from a tendon rupture or ruptured tendon) can result in an inability to walk or even place weight on the affected foot. Tendonitis in the foot usually happens from overuse of the tendons from excessive walking, running, or adding to / increasing the amount of exercise or activity that you do. Improper stretching and poor form during activities may also cause foot tendonitis. Anyone can suffer from tendonitis, but it's most common in adults due to degeneration of tissue as we age. Over time the tendons in the foot will wear down resulting in something called degeneration. This is where the fibers in your tendons will become more weak - it's just a natural process that happens as we age. Any abnormalities in your feet like higher or lower arches (flat foot) can result in foot tendonitis as well. It may be hard to believe but any other injury or condition affecting your ankle, knee, hip or back that changes the way you walk (biomechanics or the way your foot hits the ground) in order to compensate for that injury can lead to foot tendonitis. This includes conditions like arthritis in your ankle or foot. If you have arthritis or osteoarthritis, this means that the bone and cartilage in your joint is already wearing away - it's a natural progression as we age. Arthritis can eventually lead to tendonitis as the joints in your feet and ankles become weaker. Calcium deposits in and around the foot or ankle joint is another cause of foot tendonitis, and is often referred to as Calcific Tendonitis. Symptoms of a Ruptured Tendon in the Foot If you suffer from a foot tendon rupture (ruptured tendon) you might hear a sudden pop or experience severe pain immediately after you're injured. Tendon ruptures usually only happen from accidents or pre-disposed conditions that weaken the tendon - like repeated injections of cortisone, calcium deposits (spurs) in and around your foot or ankle joints or other diseases (ie. gout). Tendon ruptures usually require surgery to re-attach the tendon to the bone, and if left untreated can result in permanent disability in your foot. Do You Really have Foot Tendonitis? Foot tendonitis is only one of many conditions that can cause pain in your foot. Our feet are some of the most complicated joints in our bodies with 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 tendons, muscles and ligaments (reference: 1). Considering how complicated the foot joint is - it's easy to see how so many things can go wrong, leading to chronic foot pain and injuries. The fact that this joint is so complicated does make understanding your foot pain even more problematic. Foot injuries are so common that 1 in 3 people over 65 have foot pain and 87% of people in the US will suffer from a foot injury or foot pain at some point in their lifetime (reference: 1). A lot of foot injuries can create pain in the same area, and many foot injuries are caused by overuse, degeneration, improper technique / posture during activity and poor biomechanics. For example, you might have pain around the heel or ball your foot that could really mean you have a plantar fasciitis injury or sesamoiditis. In both of these examples the cause of your pain could be tendonitis in the tendon tissue, but you may also have some other underlying conditions such as a fracture in one of the bones in your foot, or a bone spur (calcium deposit). Some people will have other foot or ankle injuries, like Achilles Tendonitis, and think that they have foot tendonitis. When researching online or speaking to your doctor, you'll find that foot and ankle issues are often used to describe foot tendonitis interchangeably. It's easy to get many of these injuries mixed up because everything in the body is connected, and sometimes the pain from one injury will be felt nearby or in a different area of the body. What kind of Foot Tendonitis do You Have? The most common forms of foot tendonitis are Posterior Tibial Tendonitis and Peroneal Tendonitis. Both of these types of tendonitis affect the sides of your foot. It's common to have one of these injuries and feel pain in the top of your foot or even in your ankle. Toe Deformities can sometimes also lead to chronic foot tendonitis pain. If you have posterior tibial tendonitis you'll feel pain on the inner side of your foot. With this condition most pain is felt during the "push off" motion done with walking. If you have peroneal tendonitis you'll likely feel pain on the back and outer side of your foot and ankle. This injury will create radiating pain that you'll feel when standing and pushing off with your foot when walking. When it comes to toes deformities, you'll definitely know when you have this injury because there will be a visual difference in the shape or bend of your toes. The 3 most common forms of foot deformities are hammer toe, mallet toe and claw toe. Along with these abnormalities, those who also suffer from bunions (hard bumps on the big toe joint) and calluses (thickened skin from friction or pressure) may also be at risk of getting foot tendonitis. In most cases bunions and calluses will develop from improperly fitted shoes - if your toes don't have enough space or the widest part of your foot (near your toes) rubs up against the inside of your shoes. At this point you're probably asking yourself... If you suspect you have tendonitis in your foot, Usually conservative treatment methods are all that's needed to treat foot tendonitis, surgery is only ever used if long-term conservative treatment methods don't work or if you've suffered from a ruptured tendon in your foot. Conservative treatment options for foot tendonitis typically includes rest, icing of the injury, elevation, reducing your activity, wearing shoes that fit your feet and are appropriate for the activity you're doing and anti-inflammatory over-the-counter medication (reference: 1, 2, 3). Second, if your doctor has decided that your injury can be treated with conservative treatment options, then you'll find that many of our customers have had great success treating themselves with our powerful conservative treatment products - the Plantar/Spur Freezie Wrap®, Inferno Wrap® and Knee-Flex® Passive Foot Stretching Device. Or, if surgical intervention is required, talk with your doctor about using these same products for post-surgery recovery as you'll find them to be effective for reducing post-surgery inflammation, enhancing range of motion and reducing scar tissue growth. ... and Re-injury of your foot must be avoided at all costs! Constant re-injury (you know when it's happening, you can feel the pain) needs to be avoided at all costs. Obviously, it delays the healing process, but what's worse is that every re-injury and additional healing cycle increases the amount of scar tissue that builds up in the area of your original foot tendonitis injury. Scar tissue is hard, inflexible, and tough to get rid of. The more severe your foot tendonitis is, the more likely that this scar tissue will make your tendon much more prone to injury again later on. The more scar tissue that develops, the more you lose the range of motion in your foot and ankle. Continuous re-injury and build-up of scar tissue while staying active means you'll have a greater chance of winding up with on-going pain, more tearing in your tendon, tendinosis (thickening of your tendon) or a full rupture. If you have pain and inflammation in your foot or ankle, it's very important to heal your injury quickly and completely. You must avoid the build up of scar tissue. If you don't, your foot tendonitis injury may plague you forever. This is why it's so important to continuously use conservative treatment tools to heal any recurring tendon damage before it can build into something big. For any foot tendonitis sufferer, having the right tools means all the difference. Mild and moderate cases of tendonitis / strained tendons are best treated with conservative home therapies. Severe injury to the tendon (ruptured tendons) will require surgery to re-attach the tendon to your bone. If you suspect that you've ruptured your tendon be sure to speak with your doctor for suggested treatment. Step 1 - Reduce Pain and Swelling with Cold Compression The first step for conservative treatment of your foot tendonitis is to reduce the swelling to "open up" the area for more blood flow. Anyone in the health-care business knows that your blood supplies the oxygen and much needed nutrients required to heal foot tendonitis injuries. This is why for years, doctors, trainers, and other medical professionals have recommended RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) to treat the pain and swelling of fresh injuries, chronic pain, and after any re-injury. Although RICE can help to treat these symptoms, ice and freezer gel packs reach temperatures so low they can cause cryoburn, an ice burn on your skin. The problem is, up until now there hasn't been another option to treat painful conditions and injuries, so ice and freezer gel packs have been the only choice. Fortunately, you no longer have to settle for these ice cold methods that are uncomfortably cold against your skin, provide short term relief, cause ice burns, and numb your skin and underlying tissue beyond feeling so you don't even notice the ice burn until it's too late. Our Freezie Wraps® allows you to treat your tendonitis in an effective and convenient way. Cold Compression Therapy works by stopping and slowing nerve and cell function in the injured area and reducing swelling that can block blood vessels. This is important because once blood vessels are blocked or damaged, they can no longer carry oxygenated blood to your damaged tendon and tissue cells begin to break-down. Without cold compression therapy cellular break-down and tissue damage continues because the cells can't get the oxygen they need to survive. By limiting the amount of damage done to your tendons, you also limit the amount of healing that needs to occur. This is a very important step to heal acute or chronic tendon injuries faster and with less pain! I'll seem weird for you to read this, but there are a LOT of people out there that don't understand how fast cold compression with a Plantar Freezie Wrap® can get the swelling / inflammation in your foot under control! After you get rid of the swelling for good you can start dealing with your foot injury and pain head on. Step 2 - Improve Circulation, Soften Scar Tissue & Prevent Re-Injury with Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy After the inflammation around your injured tendon has been reduced, you need to provide extra blood flow to strengthen your tendon tissue. Promoting blood flow to your foot tendonitis to help your body heal itself is a concept that has been utilized for centuries. Oxygen and nutrients, carried within the blood, are critical for the body to heal itself. Without proper blood flow, your recovery from foot tendonitis will be delayed... sometimes for a very long period of time. Even though the concept is simple, improving blood flow to foot while it's injured can be difficult. Traditional methods require your foot to move in order to promote blood flow - but that same motion that promotes blood flow can also make your pain and tendonitis much worse. Relying on movement alone to increase blood flow puts you in danger of re-injuring your foot. So what do you do when you need to increase blood flow, but you can't move your foot without re-injuring your tendon? Using Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy (BFST®), will speed your recovery and heal your tendon injury more completely while preparing it for strengthening exercises. This is especially important for tendon injuries (torn tendon, tendon pain and tendon rupture) because tendons are known to receive very little natural blood flow. BFST® will increase the amount of blood that flows naturally to your tendon to nourish your tissue, improving elasticity and helping with the overall healing process. At this point in your healing, when the swelling's gone, increase blood flow is critical to your injury recovery. Step 3 - Stretch Your Foot to Speed Up Recovery The final step in foot tendonitis recovery is stretching - this is a critical step for complete recovery from your injury! Physical therapists almost always prescribe gentle stretching for to deal with foot tendonitis, and if no device is available, they usually prescribe something called "heel slides". In a physical therapy office, your therapist will help you to perform a heel slide if your foot hurts too much to do it on your own. Outside of the physical therapy office (when trying this stretch at home), your therapist might suggest that you try to use a plastic bag, cookie sheet, tension band, belt or any other household tool to help you move your foot. The problem with this is that using a plastic bag or cookie sheet during this stretch can be unsafe, with little to no control over your leg... Potentially resulting in an even worse injury! The Knee-Flex® was created because the heel was not sliding smoothly enough, causing re-injury and additional pain. Physical Therapists encounter the same issues every day when attempting to work with patients who are undergoing therapy from a serious tendonitis injury. This is why most therapists in Canada instantly purchased these same devices for their own clinics. For individuals recovering from serious pain, it allows a more controlled and comfortable method to stretch and strengthen the tendons, muscles and ligaments in your foot, ankle, calf, knee, thigh and hip. Using the Knee-Flex® not only helps minimize the growth of scar tissue, but it also increases the elasticity and strength of the tendons, ligaments and muscles in your foot and ankle. After using the Knee-Flex® over time, the tendons in your foot will be better prepared to handle higher and higher loads. Eventually you'll reach a stage where your foot can handle mobility aids (like crutches / a cane) or standing for longer and longer periods of time. You'll find in most rehabilitation programs heel slide stretching and conservative treatment will help to: build muscle strength in your lower leg (calf muscle) increase mobility and range of motion (ROM) speed overall healing of your foot tendonitis prevent muscle loss (atrophy) in your lower leg improve muscular function and capability refine tendon tissue alignment and physical balance encourage overall foot and ankle joint flexibility facilitate proper warm up for regular exercise It's important to rest the torn tendon because our natural healing process takes time to heal completely. If you don't rest your torn tendon, your acute tendonitis can quickly turn into a chronic tendonitis injury. To repair our damaged tendon tissue quickly, our bodies will use scar tissue to fill in the tears in the tendon. If you need to rest for an extended period of time and avoid certain activities that make your pain worse, you'll be more likely to develop massive amounts of this scar tissue as a temporary healing measure. Scar tissue may plague you for weeks, months and maybe even years, depending on your level of activity and the amount of conservative treatments you have done during your rehabilitation. Scar tissue is a major problem, especially when it comes to re-injury of your tendon. When dealing with scar tissue it's always important to: listen well to your physician and if conservative treatments are recommended, remember to stick to your (daily) treatment plan using these therapies. frequent use of the Freezie Wrap® will help reduce the swelling very quickly. Much of the pain you feel will be from the swelling, and you'd be surprised how fast the pain drops off once the swelling is down. Inferno Wrap® is a safe, electromagnetic energy device that will help reduce scar tissue and increase blood flow to the area (thereby accelerating the body's own healing process). when applied before stretching, the Inferno Wrap® will help flush the area with fresh blood. This will help improve your range of motion and prevent re-injury. repeated motion with the Knee-Flex® can not only get rid of scar tissue, but also promote growth of healthy, flexible tissue. It may seem hard to believe, but our Freezie Wraps®, Inferno Wraps® and Knee-Flex® will assist you in recovering from your injury faster and reduce the chance suffering from degenerative conditions (like arthritis or osteoarthritis) by maximizing blood flow where it's needed most and reducing swelling / inflammation induced pain. Learn more about how the Freezie Wrap® is designed to be the most effective cold compression wrap on the market today. Learn more about how the Inferno Wrap® helps with the healing process. Learn more about how the Knee-Flex®Passive Stretching Device can assist rehab exercises to increase mobility and deal with chronic scar tissue. Original article and pictures take http://www.aidyourtendon.com/tendinitis-injuries/foot-tendonitis.php site
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