Chronic Foot Pain – Causes & Treatment Options

While all pain is bad, chronic foot pain can be particularly cumbersome for patients. For most people, walking, standing, and moving around on your feet are essential to your ability to function on a daily basis. With chronic foot pain, even the simplest tasks can be difficult and time-consuming. In this article, we will look at the potential causes of chronic foot pain, as well as some of the available methods for treating each of these causes.

Causes of Chronic Foot Pain

The causes of recurring foot pain are various. Here are a few common situations

• Sprain of the ligaments in the foot or ankle. Sprains typically heal on their own given enough time, but such injuries can also lead to recurring pain long after the initial injury has healed.
• Plantar Fasciitis is an inflammation of the plantar fascia – a band of tissue on the bottom of your foot that stretches from your heel to your toes. Pain from this condition typically presents as heel pain (especially if it flares up in the morning after you step out of bed.
• Heel spurs are bony growths at the bottom of your heel that can cause pain while standing or walking.
• Peripheral neuropathy can cause pain and numbness in the feet. This condition occurs when peripheral nerves are impacted in one way or another.

These are just a few examples of the many causes of chronic pain in the foot.

Foot Pain Treatment Options

With any instance of pain, the first step in the right direction begins with accurately diagnosing the cause of the pain. A broken foot would be treated much differently than plantar fasciitis, for example; even though both conditions may present similar symptoms. Finding the right diagnosis requires a combination of physical examination, imaging tests such as X-rays, and other factors.

Depending on the specific root cause of your foot pain, treatment options may include physical therapy, prescription pain medication, injection therapy, bracing, PRP therapy, or surgery (though this is usually a last resort after other methods fail). A pain management physician specializes in analyzing your specific situation and tailoring a comprehensive treatment plan for decreasing your foot pain.

At Advanced Spine & Pain Clinics of Minnesota, we help patients manage most types of pain. If you are experiencing recurring pain in your foot, don’t hesitate – make an appointment with a Minnesota pain management specialist today to discuss your options for treatment.