Heel Spurs & Custom Orthotics

Are you experiencing sharp pain in your heel when you get out of bed in the morning? When you take a step, does it feel like someone is jabbing a knife into your heel? If so, you might have a heel spur. 

While the heel spur itself is sometimes painless, the condition is commonly associated with Plantar Fasciitis. Don't worry though — custom orthotics can help reduce your heel pain and pressure.

Good afternoon Dr. Parson here. I'm here to address a condition that's very common to our office. Sometimes people don't know that chiropractic treats this and it's unfortunate. Um we treat most musculoskeletal conditions but one in particular plantar fasciitis and custom-made orthotics and heel spurs. So, let's just address custom-made orthotics. Customization means just that it is made for your foot. It's done by casting methods and we do it by laser  scanning method where you stand on a laser and it'll scan your foot and we send that to a lab and that they build the custom-made orthotic for you, for your type of shoe wear, for your sweaty feet, for the different materials, for all Kinds, the work working man, and the working boot, the tennis shoe, the runner, great orthotics for runners and very Athletic people, so custom means just that. Plantar fasciitis is a very common condition treated throughout and treated basically the same way, there's low level laser, there's stretching, there's ultrasound, there's e-stem, there's rolling a ball, they're on and on. And there's the basic things whether physical therapy, whether it be chiropractic but there's one common thing that generally I can say without a doubt that all patients with plantar fasciitis need: is customization of orthotics. It helps take pressure off the plantar fascia, so that it heals faster. It's a slow healing process as is but it can be very debilitating if you know you have it, can change you change your world. So, it's painful, so customized orthotics can be a valuable tool they can take they can make a huge difference quick but ultimately helping the plantar fascia to heal faster. Customization, now the standard customized orthotic is a one arch system, what does that mean? Well, you have three arches in your feet and if you pull one off the counter, you'll notice that it's just one arches, that medial arch, that inside arch which everybody's familiar with um and it's to help correct pronation, maybe supination but pronation like this tends to lead more to our plant, to our fascial problems  so, it's a one arch. Um, even you know and then there's two types there's hard orthotics versus soft orthotics. Hard orthotics are just what they are, very hard and a lot of times they end up in the in the closet because I can't wear them. The type we do are considered soft orthotics, they're not soft they just have a level of cushion to allow for some pronation and a slight bounce to them to where there's easier to wear and they will be worn more. But again, customization for plantar fascia you have to scan them, we send it to the lab, the lab builds them with certain specifications to take the pronation out and here's the kicker, so many hard orthotics or I haven't seen one honestly that have a heel spur correction. Now heel spur correction, if you have a heel spur it hurts. It's not the actual producer of the pain, but everybody thinks it is so we'll just keep it at that. The heel spur, it's a spur in your foot that is associated often with plantar fasciitis, heavy pronation and on and on and it's a cycle that begins sometimes at an early age. But the heel spur correction is a customized cup in in the orthotic that takes the pressure off the heel spur so, you don't see those much and this is one of the only few companies that I know that do this and that's why I've been with them for 30 years, very customized. And one more thing, I don't know if i mentioned this but let's we talked  about that one arch. Well, you actually have three archers in your feet. You have one in the inside, one on the outside, and one across the front up in your forefoot that's called the transverse arc, lateral, medial arch got three. They all need to be addressed and I don't see that being addressed with hard orthotics or casting techniques and such. The ones we do address that and it makes a big difference. You address the three arches, you can customize them to any shoe where you do, the nature of your feet, the amount of pronation, again that's done by the laser scan. And one of the big things that people don't know about that I want to is the heel spur correction which takes the pressure off the heel spur which can save you surgery save you painful shots uh and you don't want to remove a heel spur that's that can be very problematic so you want to try a conservative method. If you have plantar fasciitis, give us a call or consult your chiropractor or someone that uses foot levelers and these scans. By the way this scan, that's a normal and that's an abnormal I don't know if you can see those but you can see all the red and there shouldn't be red over here. But point is customization of orthotics can make a world of difference in your plantar fascial pain, how fast it heals, we'll get into knee pain and low back pain and hip pain and all the other things that they can do and talk about customized orthotics in that realm later. So, have a good day, call us if we can be of any help.