What causes Foot Pain?
There are a vast range of potential causes of foot pain, which include: sudden trauma such as when a person falls or drops a heavy object on their foot, arthritis, neuropathy or biomechanical problems.
Foot pain resulting from biomechanical inaccuracies mean that the foot pain results from changes in foot position, leg position, knee, back or pelvic position when walking, running or playing sport. These changes in posture may have developed over a number of years as a result of continued abnormal loading through the foot, ankle, knee and hip. Or may have been present since birth. Either way, as we continue to load the body with our joints in the wrong position, the foot, ankle, knee and back are all forced to sustain abnormal stresses which may result in foot pain.
Which Foot Injuries result in Foot Pain?
The accumulation of abnormal stresses will eventually be too much for the tissue (bone, ligament, tendon or muscle tissue) to withstand and eventually damage to the tissue will occur. This damage may present in the form of an ankle sprain, ligament injury, heel bone spurs, changes in joint position (e.g. development of a bunions or hammer toes), stress fractures, tendinopathy (tendonitis), joint swelling or muscle swelling, joint stiffness, or muscle stiffness.
Common diagnosed foot injuries include; metatarsalgia, mortons neuroma, metatarsal stress fracture, arthritis, cuboid syndrome, heel bone spurs, plantarfasciitis, peroneal tendonopathy, tibialis posterior tendinopathy, bursitis, insertional achilles tendinopathy, and ligament sprains.
Foot Pain Treatment
There are a number of treatment options available for foot pain; such as medication, foot orthotics (arch supports), Foot mobilisation), appropriate strength and conditioning of the foot, ankle, leg and pelvis, acupuncture, injection therapy and shock wave therapy.
Accurate biomechanical assessment is essential in order to diagnose and treat foot pain. On occasion further imaging, such as an X-ray or an MRI scan is required to diagnose the foot injury when clinical biomechanical assessment is not sufficient, however a good clinician will be able to advise on this at the biomechanical assessment.
