What is Plantar Fasciitis?
Understanding what our bodies are telling us is a key way to remain in the best possible health, even into old age.
Our body tells us every little problem happened to it, by showing specific symptoms, from minor aches and sore spots to problems that may require remedy.
So maintaining a good and healthy life involves the understanding of the body and not ignoring any pains that may come up.
For example, in a fresh, mesmerizing morning you get up from your bed and as you take some steps it causes sharp, throbbing heel pain, it can be the sign of Plantar Fasciitis.
You must be thinking now that what is this Plantar Fasciitis, right?
When a person walks, the impact of hard ground on his every step is neutralized by his feet’s protective structures like bones, muscles, and ligaments.
When a normal healthy person stands, walks or runs his wonderfully flexible ligaments support this standing, walking and running.
But when any damage happens to the Plantar Fascia, one of the most important ligaments in feet, Plantar Fasciitis develops. So Plantar Fasciitis is a medical condition in which your sole hurts due to any damage to its covering.
Plantar fasciitis represents the most common cause of heel pain in adults, affecting 2 million persons annually in the United States.
The peak incidence occurs between ages 40 and 60 years, although it has been known to occur in runners who are younger.
Bilateral involvement, which occurs in approximately one-third of patients, should prompt consideration of inflammatory disease.
Other Names
Plantar Fasciitis also has many other names such as plantar fasciopathy, Jogger’s Heel or Runner’s Heel as it is common in Athletes and Runners.
Medical Definition
In medical literature Plantar refers to our foot and sole whereas the word fasciitis is a combination of two words Fascia and suffix –itis. Fascia refers to a collagenous sheath covering our sole and suffix –itis means inflammation.
So the literal meaning of Plantar Fasciitis is:
“The inflammation of sole’s fascia”
Plantar Fascia is present along the foot’s bottom. It is a fibrous tissue that begins from the heel area, like a strong elastic band, and then begins to fan out as it heads toward each of individual toe across the foot arch.
This ligament is a cushion to our feet that absorb the force of bounce and spring of normal daily activity, but in the case of Plantar Fasciitis, this fascia stretches and moves far more than its stretching capability, as a result, small tears appear in the tissue and these tears then cause inflammation.
Additionally, bone spurs may form on the heel bone, which is actually the calcium deposit.
These bony lumps are then pushed into the soft pad of your heel with each step you take, causing more pain.
It can understand now that it is a progressive condition. The combination of small tears, inflammation and those bone spurs can cause devastation if left untreated.
But there is no need to worry about it because this painful condition is, fortunately, curable and there are natural options for resolving the pain of this condition.
No inflammation in Plantar Fasciitis!
Many studies on Plantar Fasciitis have stated that there is actually not any inflammation involved in Plantar Fasciitis despite having the word “Fasciitis” in it.
Surprised? You are not alone. Confused? Don’t worry you won’t be for long.
“Plantar Fasciitis is believed to result primarily from repetitive microtrauma and excessive strain. Although it is considered to be an inflammatory condition based on historic descriptions, recent studies suggest that it is a non-inflammatory, degenerative process that may be more appropriately termed plantar fasciosis (Craig R.).”
There are several reasons for this misconception and one of the main reasons is the way people are typically diagnosed with it.
For example, most of the people thought that they have Plantar Fasciitis because they feel pain in the heel, especially in the morning when they take their first few steps or due to the area of pain such as the bottom of the foot or most often the heel area.
They also assume that they are suffering from Plantar Fasciitis because they see no other obvious cause such as broken bone or any other related disease.
We can see people don’t go for an X-ray or lab test that can confirm the Plantar Fasciitis.
Moreover, the things which are commonly used for the diagnosis are not perfect enough in their results to tell us that either inflammation present in the fascia or not.
Therefore people who are told that they have Plantar Fasciitis automatically assume that their fascia is full of inflammation.
Well if we approach this matter in medical terms then “inflammed” means we will find some specific evidence of inflammation.
Moreover, in the medical literature, there are two types of inflammation, acute and chronic.
Acute is referred to immediate so acute inflammation is an immediate response to an injury.
It is quick and lasts from minutes to hours and even for days depending on the severity of tissue injury.
In this type of inflammation, neutrophils (a type of white blood cells) are the main cells involved in it.
Whereas chronic inflammation “comes slow and goes slow” means it has a slow and prolonged duration in which all mechanism such as tissue destruction, tissue repairing, and active inflammation is going on at the same time.
In chronic inflammation macrophages, lymphocytes and plasma cells are mainly involved (Cells that are part of our immunity).
So from the knowledge of inflammation, we can now tell that if the plantar fascia is indeed inflamed the cells stated above should be present in plantar fascia since these are the cells directly involved in any type of inflammation.
Jarde and also Lemont (2003) took a piece of fascia from 88 patients of Plantar Fasciitis collectively and examined it under a microscope and what they found was cartilaginous metaplasia, fibromatosis, and microcalcification. (Jarde, Lemont 2003)
So from the above research, we can see that inflammation is not a compulsion in Plantar Fasciitis.
Although it can be present in patients of Plantar Fasciitis it is not a definitive diagnostic signal to confirm Plantar Fasciitis in a patient.
References
- Hicks JH. The mechanics of the foot. II. The plantar aponeurosis and the arch. J Anat 1954; 88: 25–30
- Lemont H, Ammirati KM, Usen N. Plantar fasciitis: a degenerative process (fasciosis) without inflammation. J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 2003; 93: 234–237