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Can A Chiropractor Fix Plantar Fasciitis Pain?

The intense heel pain you experience when your feet first touch the floor each morning has become unbearable. You’ve rested your feet, applied ice, worn pharmacy inserts, and stretched until you’re about to cry. The relief lasts until you are standing for work, walking up stairs, or at the grocery store, until all your energy is gone.

Injections and surgery intimidate you, but you are seeking a real fix and not simply covering up the symptoms. A chiropractor can treat plantar fasciitis with specific adjustments. Additionally, they employ soft-tissue therapy and exercises to address the issue.

Chiropractic care for plantar fasciitis is intended to address biomechanical factors. It targets the foot, ankle, spine, and pelvis that contribute to this common condition. Most patients find significant relief within two to four weeks of commencing chiropractic care.

Plantar fasciitis chiropractor treatment corrects the mechanical problem that caused your heel pain. The benefit? You can expect real results and relief, not only pain relief, which will be gone in 4-6 weeks after the injection is no longer in effect.

Continue reading to learn further about chiropractic treatment for plantar fasciitis.

Plantar Fasciitis- A Detailed Breakdown

Plantar fasciitis is an injury that affects more than 2 million Americans each year. Plantar fasciitis occurs when the thick band of tissue on the bottom of your foot becomes inflamed and/or injured. This ligament supports your arch and acts as a shock absorber during activity.

What Is Plantar Fasciitis?

Plantar fasciitis is an inflammatory condition of the plantar fascia ligament. This is the thick band of fibrous tissue that attaches to the heel bone and stretches to the toes. Micro-tears can accumulate more quickly than your body can heal. They cause irritation, inflammation, and pain as the plantar fascia becomes overloaded.

Plantar fasciitis usually occurs at the insertion point on the heel bone, which is subject to the greatest force.

Common Causes of Plantar Fasciitis

Several factors contribute to the development of plantar fasciitis. Among others:

  1. Standing for Prolonged Periods: Jobs that require more than 6 hours of standing during the day place continued stress on the plantar fascia.

  2. Excess Weight: Every pound you weigh translates to three to four pounds of pressure on your feet when walking.

  3. The Wrong Shoes: Shoes that lack arch support and distribute the stress unevenly across the plantar fascia.

  4. High-Intensity Exercises: A typical runner receives impact stresses of two to three times the weight of their body with each stride.

  5. Tight Calf Muscles: Tight calf muscles limit ankle movement and increase tension on the plantar fascia.

  6. Foot Abnormality: High arches or flat feet lead to improper distribution of weight across the plantar fascia.

  7. Age: Between 40 and 60, the plantar fascia begins to lose elasticity.

  8. Biomechanical Problems: Abnormal spinal alignment, pelvic tilts, and different leg lengths will alter your posture and walking gait.

Symptoms and Warning Signs

The most common sign of plantar fasciitis is the piercing heel pain with your first steps in the morning. This is due to the plantar fascia tightening during sleep. Typically, the pain decreases after walking for 5-10 minutes.

Warning signs also include:

  • Soreness at the bottom of the heel when pressed
  • Arch pain toward the toes
  • Exacerbation after exercise
  • Limping and attempting to unload the affected foot
  • Morning stiffness of the foot
  • Burning along the bottom of the foot
  • Some swelling around the heel area

Without treatment, symptoms of plantar fasciitis gradually worsen over months or years.

What Is Chiropractic Treatment?

Chiropractors specialize in diagnosing and managing musculoskeletal conditions. They manually correct misalignments in your structure. Misalignments compromise joint movement and nerve conduction.

A chiropractic approach to heel pain or plantar fasciitis will involve assessing the kinetic chain. In simple words, the kinetic chain includes the feet, ankles, knees, hips, pelvis, and spine. Any imbalances within it can create compensation patterns and overload your plantar fascia.

A chiropractic expert will determine the cause of your foot pain through examination of your gait, posture, and movement.

Chiropractic care for plantar fasciitis differs from medical care. It typically includes medication (e.g., anti-inflammatory drugs or corticosteroid injections). To resolve heel pain, the chiropractor will correct the structural and motion imbalances that cause it.

Chiropractic treatments for plantar fasciitis include a range of therapeutic methods. Here is the comprehensive explanation.

Foot Adjustments and Realignment

There are 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your foot. The way in which your foot moves, its mechanics, are compromised if any of these joints have been displaced or are immobile.

Chiropractors manipulate your foot to bring still, fixated joints back into their normal alignment and range of motion. Your chiropractor will apply a carefully directed, timed force to a joint with restricted movement.

The chiropractic adjustment may produce a cavitation sound as gas is released from the joint space. In most instances, you will experience immediate pain relief as stress is removed from the plantar fascia.

Your chiropractor will make adjustments to your subtalar, mid-foot, metatarsal, and ankle joints. These adjustments will restore proper joint movement. That will allow your plantar fascia to be at its optimal level of stretch or tension.

Spinal and Pelvic Alignment

It is at this point that doctoring really shines. Some patients do not even realize that the pain they are experiencing in their heel is caused by dysfunction. It generally occurs elsewhere in their body.

The bones in your spine protect your central nervous system. If these bones move out of their normal position, they can rub against or push on nerves traveling to your feet. An adjustment to your lumbar spine takes pressure off these nerves. When nerve function improves, so does the muscle’s ability to work together and decrease inflammation.

Pelvic misalignment results in a leg length discrepancy. If your pelvis is tilted on one side, one leg effectively shortens. This causes you to limp, putting more pressure on one foot. Using a hands-on approach, your chiropractor corrects the misaligned pelvis and equalizes leg length.

Knee and hip adjustments are also beneficial. When the knee or hip doesn’t move correctly, the feet are part of the body’s compensation mechanism.

Exercises and Stretches

The chiropractor will incorporate active rehabilitation into your treatment for plantar fasciitis. They will prescribe a progressive exercise program tailored to your specific needs.

Essential stretches include:

  • Calf Stretches: Stand at a wall, feet at shoulder’s width, with the affected leg forward and the other back. Keep your back heel on the ground, and bend forward at the hips. Hold for 30 seconds, and repeat 3 times, 3-4 times per day per leg.

  • Plantar Fascia Stretch: Sit on your bed with your affected foot resting on the other leg. Pull your toes back toward your shins. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds. Perform a stretch before arising.

  • Achilles tendon Stretch: Place the balls of your feet on a step and let your heels hang off the edge. Let them drop slowly to a position below the step.

Strengthening exercises include:

  • Towel Curls: Sitting with your toes scrunching toward you, an object or towel

  • Marble Pickups: Using your toes, pick up marbles from one container and place them in another

  • Resistance Band Exercises: Place a band around your foot point, flex, side to side (invert/evert foot)

  • Single-Leg Balance: Stand on one foot at a time with a 30-60 second hold to promote the body’s stabilizing mechanisms

  • Heel Raises: Rise onto the balls of your feet and hold for 2-3 seconds, slowly lower your heels for 2-3 seconds; 2-3 sets of 15

Your chiropractor demonstrates the exercises and monitors you throughout each appointment. Most people follow a home exercise program for about 10-15 minutes a day.

Massage Therapy for Plantar Fasciitis

Massage therapy is offered at many chiropractic offices. Massage supports adjustment and can speed healing.

  1. Increases Circulation

Massage dramatically improves blood flow to the damaged tissues in your foot. There is naturally a limited blood supply to the plantar fascia. The compression and release motion in massage pushes fresh blood into the tissues. It brings oxygen and nutrients to the damaged tissue, enabling cells to repair themselves.

Blood flow to injured tissues can reduce swelling and inflammation. Also, it can accelerate collagen formation to repair torn ligament fibers.

  1. Reduces Muscle Tightness

The muscles of your foot, calf, and leg develop tightness that, over time. It causes your plantar fascia to tighten when you have plantar fasciitis. Massage will help release muscle knots (trigger points) that refer pain to the heel and reduce excessive strain on your leg and foot muscles. Your massage therapist should perform the massage on both legs.

  1. Breaks Down Scar Tissue

When plantar fasciitis becomes chronic, thick scar tissue can develop within the plantar fascia. This is a physical blockage that holds the plantar fascia tight against other structures. Massage therapy can break up this tissue.

For foot pain, chiropractors use metal instruments and guided movements. They break up deep scar tissue that is too difficult for the hands to reach.

The Benefits of Chiropractic Care for Plantar Fasciitis

Chiropractic adjustments, however, go beyond pain relief by also bringing the foot into proper alignment and order.

Benefits of Chiropractic for Plantar Fasciitis include:

  1. Fixes the underlying problems rather than covering up the symptoms.

  2. Drug-free treatment to alleviate pain and avoid the side effects and risks associated with taking medications.

  3. Non-invasive to avoid surgery.

  4. Treats your whole musculoskeletal system rather than just the local affected area.

  5. Prevent recurrence by correcting the problems that initially caused your condition.

  6. Faster healing time, usually between 6 and 12 weeks, as opposed to 6 and 18 months from traditional medical treatment.

  7. Improved mobility returns the body’s natural mechanics for normal walking and running.

  8. Cost-effective as opposed to costly repeated injections or surgery.

  9. Produces long-lasting change in your body mechanics.

  10. Evidence suggests that chiropractic care provides patients with pain relief and increased function more quickly than medical care alone.

Who Can Benefit from Chiropractic Treatment?

Plantar fasciitis treatments help many groups. Nearly anyone with heel pain will notice relief from plantar fasciitis chiro care.

Athletes and Runners

Because athletes perform repetitive training on their feet, their feet experience unnecessary stress. To give you an idea, a typical running session can result in hundreds to thousands of foot strikes. Chiropractic care for athletes enables them to continue training and exercising while healing. Given your demanding racing schedule, the chiropractor adapts your treatment.

People who would find chiropractic useful: basketball, volleyball, tennis, soccer, CrossFit athletes, and weightlifters.

People with Standing Jobs

Prolonged standing occupations are associated with long-term chronic plantar fascia strain. Occupations with increased risk include nurses, retail workers, teachers, waiters/waitresses, hairdressers, factory workers, security guards, and couriers.

Your chiropractor also offers advice on workplace ergonomics, including anti-fatigue mats, proper footwear, and stretching breaks.

Individuals with Chronic Heel Pain

If you have not seen results from rest, icing, stretching, and OTC orthotics, chiropractic treatment may be worth a try. Chronic cases are usually complex. They involve various contributing factors that cannot be remedied by simply doing more of the same things you have already done.

Chiropractic treatment is successful because it addresses the root cause.

Preventing Plantar Fasciitis

How to prevent plantar fasciitis, or prevent it from returning:

  • Wear well-fitting, supportive shoes that have adequate arch support and padding.

  • Have custom orthotics made that address structural foot issues.

  • Achieve and maintain a healthy weight–losing 10 pounds can take away a considerable amount of the force through your plantar fascia.

  • Stretch every morning before getting out of bed — do your calf and plantar fascia stretches.

  • Increase your activity level slowly; remember the 10% rule: increase your exercise by 10% each week.

  • Continue strengthening exercises even once the pain is gone.

  • Cross-train in high and low-impact activities.

  • Have regular maintenance visits to your chiropractor 4-8 times a year.

  • See your chiropractor as soon as you notice any symptoms.

Find Relief from Plantar Fasciitis at Action Chiropractic

Action Chiropractic offers comprehensive treatment programs for plantar fasciitis. Our experienced chiropractors use evidence-based chiropractic methods. They combine chiropractic care with other advanced treatments to deliver rapid, sustainable relief.

Our doctors first conduct an extensive evaluation, including gait and postural analyses and an advanced computerized foot-scanning system. We then develop a treatment plan for your plantar fasciitis that targets all contributing factors. Patients begin to experience relief within the first 2 to 4 treatment sessions.

The sharp, stabbing pain in your heel does not have to become a normal part of your life. Plantar fasciitis should not stand between you and fully living each day to the fullest.

Book your initial consultation with Action Chiropractic. Please call our office or schedule online to learn how to book your appointment using our easy-to-use booking software. We participate with most insurance companies and offer payment plans for uninsured individuals.

The health of your feet supports all that you do. Let Action Chiropractic help you step towards a pain-free tomorrow with clinically-proven chiropractic treatment.

Dr. Norgaard’s first exposure to chiropractic was when he was a high school football player at Neuqua Valley in Naperville, Illinois. Nagging injuries led him to Action Chiropractic and Dr. Durnas. He was amazed with the results he got and knew that the treatments provided at Action Chiropractic were the best way to address his ailments.
After high school, Dr. Norgaard left Naperville and attended Central College in Pella, Iowa. While at Central, he majored in biology and played football, further piquing his interest in sports injuries and how to treat them. When he wasn’t in the classroom or on the football field, Dr. Norgaard spent his time volunteering at hospitals, and at various clinics. This is when he really developed a passion for helping people get better.
His experiences as an athlete, chiropractic patient, and volunteer shaped his decision to become a chiropractor.
After graduating from Central, Dr. Norgaard continued his education at Palmer College of Chiropractic.
While at Palmer, Dr. Norgaard took several extracurricular courses focusing on spinal diagnosis and therapy, soft tissue care, and diagnosis and treatment of the extremities. He completed a 4-month internship with Dr. Durnas at Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center and further developed his skills as a physician.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Palmer in October of 2021 and received the Academic Excellence Award.
After graduation, Dr. Norgaard joined the team at Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center. He currently resides in the Naperville area with his wife, Shannon, son, Parker, and dog, Alby.
“I chose to become a chiropractor because I was helped by chiropractic. I was in such discomfort it took me over 3 minutes to put on my socks. After seeing a chiropractor, and regaining the ability to tie my shoes, I realized that taking loads of NSAIDs did not address the fact that there was something causing the pain. The more I learned about it, I found that Chiropractic doesn’t just hide symptoms, like I was trying to do with pills, it fixes the origin of the problem.”
Dr. Durnas graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Biology and Bachelors of Arts degree in Chemistry. After graduation he worked in research and development for 3 years and dabbled in powerlifting and professional wrestling. That’s what lead him to chiropractic school. While at Palmer College of Chiropractic, he focused on learning how to best help the athlete. He took several extracurricular courses on how to address soft tissue injuries, how to adjust extremities, and how to better manage sports injuries. He graduated in June of 2012, where we were the Palmer Clinical Excellence Award winner and a keynote speaker at commencement.
In 2019, Dr. Durnas earned his Diplomate from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians (DACBSP)®. He is only the 427th chiropractor in history to earn this designation, and only the 6th recipient in the history of Illinois. He completed over 300 hours of classroom and online courses focusing on in depth on the diagnosis and treatment of sports injuries, concussions, and emergency procedures, and had over 100 on the field hours with athletes that ranged from cross fitters, professional and high school football players, professional BMX and Motocross riders, triathletes, and runners. Dr. Durnas passed a 6-part practical exam and a 250 question Board exam and contributed a case study involving nerve damage in a professional athlete following a hit to the shoulder.