Do I Need To See A Doctor? Hmm, so, you’ve got heel pain, but it’s only been a few weeks and you’re wondering whether or not you actually need to come and see someone like me, right?
Okay, that’s a really reasonable question, but let’s start by assuming that it’s only been a few weeks and give you some simple stuff you can do at home to try and make sure it doesn’t become worse and we’ll talk about that in a second.
The first thing you need to think about and make sure you do is get some really good quality shoes. Now, good quality shoes are not super soft cushion shoes. They’re cushion shoes, but with a firm cushioning.
Now, the other things you need to look for when you’re looking for a good shoe is that they don’t bend in the middle, that they do bend at the toes, and they’ve got a firm heel counter. Now, we’ve got a whole video on what to look for when you’ve got heel pain in a shoe, so head there.
The next thing you can do is grab some anti-inflammatories. By all means, go and get some advice, so see your podiatrist or see your general practitioner, but some mild anti-inflammatory medication, like creams and also tablets is probably something you wanna try in the first few weeks.
The next thing you can do is that if this is a true inflammation of the heel, you need to try and get some ice on it. Try and bring the inflammation down. In the first few weeks, if you try these things, you might find that your heel pain goes away.
Now, if you’ve tried these things and guess what, it’s still there if you’ve had your pain for four weeks or more, from here, everything says to us that guess what? It’s gone from being an acute problem to being a chronic problem, and for most people, unfortunately, it means that the problem actually often gets worse.
You see, the problems move from being acute to chronic and chronic often means degenerative, and what’s happening is the tendon in your heel is actually starting to break down a little bit. Now, that’s a big problem if we don’t get on top of fixing it and as soon as we possibly can, so what you need to do is anything over four weeks, make sure you see a podiatrist and make sure you see a podiatrist that’s really experienced in seeing heel pain.
For example, the practitioners that work with me see anything between eight to 15 heel pain patients every single day, so that means they’ve got stacks of experience looking after people, yeah, just like you.
Finally, I wanna say one thing. We won’t harp on it, but guess what? If you’re stretching and you’ve had heel pain for more than four weeks, please stop. Everything that we find at the moment says that stretching with chronic heel pain actually makes things worse.
Need more information? Great, look in below and you’ll find that there are stacks of links to actually great information about heel pain and other conditions that we talk about in aid to getting you back to happy, healthy, and active, so I’ll catch you then at those videos next.
Heel Pain Calculator
You may also like to try our Heel Pain Calculator. This is the first Heel Pain calculator in the world and will help guide you to potential treatment protocols. Use this guide to help guide you to understand better the level of infection that you may have present and give helpful suggestions as to what the best therapies maybe. Head to heelpaindr.com.au
ABOUT DR BRENDEN BROWN
Dr Brenden Brown, Podiatrist & Shendi Brown
Founder of A Step Ahead Foot + Ankle Care in Sydney, and former president of the Australasian Podiatry Council, Dr Brenden Brown (A.K.A Dr Foot) is a wealth of knowledge on how to take care of your feet, including how to find the best shoes.
Follow him on social media:
instagram.com/askdrfoot
facebook.com/podiatristsydney
twitter.com/AStepAheadFAC
Free Report “10 things to know before choosing a Podiatrist”
Shameless Plug or where to get real help!
Need help? Need another opinion? Just want to get this sorted? Great, we’d love to help you ? You can start by calling our wonderfully helpful team on 9673 2987. They are all parents and will be able to help answer questions and guide you in the right direction.
Another option is to use our call back service, pop your details in the very short form and we will call YOU back on a number and times that suits YOU best. ?
Dr Brenden’s White paper report on the “6 Reasons You Won’t Beat Heal Pain” outlines what’s stopping you from beating this and tips on how to stop it in its tracks!