Foot and Ankle Pain: Diagnosis and Treatment at Home

Introduction

If you have foot or ankle pain or swelling and are not able to seek professional help at the moment, don’t worry. We will discuss what you can do at home to diagnose and treat it. When we are experiencing foot or ankle pain or discomfort, it can be very distressing as we use our foot bearing our weight all through the day. Before jumping into treating it yourself, it is of utmost importance to assess the situation and determine exactly what is causing it.

Understanding Foot and Ankle Pain

The foot, also, was designed by nature with the sole intention of providing humans with a spring-like action, allowing easy walking and running alike. Unfortunately, these specific biological designs and functions that the foot and ankle have are also the cause of many problems. Arthritis of the ankle joint can result from excessive flexion work and fractures can result from sudden pressure on the many bones in the human foot. Over the last several years, treatment of foot and ankle pain has evolved into a specialty area within orthopaedics. This has occurred as physicians on all levels within the healthcare profession, in research, with personal cases, and in physician-to-physician or patient-to-physician relations have embraced treatments and endpoint goals with the utmost intent and effort. The following is the current trend in diagnosis and treatment for patients around the world.

While you have overworked or overstressed your foot or ankle joints, or if there has been a traumatic injury to a joint of either one of your feet, you may experience pain, especially as you age. Most people begin to notice the discomfort in the mid-twenties to early thirties. Pain seems to systematically increase in frequency and duration over the next twenty to thirty years of life. Whether it was a car accident, fall from a short height, while playing a sport, or while simply walking, the lower extremities are subject to many adverse stimuli. It is a well-known fact that the ankle joint is a very delicate joint allowing a mixture of special gliding, flexion, and extension movements while under additional load from posture and motion.

Diagnosing Ankle Pain

Diagnosis involves two steps: A) you must touch various anatomical areas of your feet and ankles and attribute your pain to a specific area, and B) the pain must either increase or decrease in response to 6 strength and stability tests designed to assess the function of the specific muscle groups that support the joint during gait and standing. Diagnosing a pain should really only require acknowledging the presence of a pain surrounding the bone in question (like fibular fracture = pain around the fibula). Do note that each of the conditions are “revealed” when the patient doesn’t do the tester expects them to do; i.e. a patient might not have ankle active plantar flexion which would indicate Achilles tendinitis, and this same patient, upon resuming your attempt to conduct normal gait through pain, might land on the heel or go to great lengths to reduce the load on the toes as the tendons supporting the ankle and toes are now working to support the ankle in compromised postures due to one or both tarsals of the foot displaying a reduced ability to maximally pronate during gait. A good rule of thumb to remember would be, every movement of the foot requires a movement from the joint, and this joint is supported by muscles that jointly form up the shock absorbers or springs of the ankle. Pains are derived from the actions and inactions of the muscle supports. No supports means that gait posture changes and we experience increased painful loads on the feet, heel, ankle and proximal loading structures supporting the ankle joint.

Ankle pain can be caused by inflammation and irritation to the tendons, bone, or joint resulting from injury, autoimmune disorders, blood flow reduction, infections, tumors, or rarely, other causes. Tendon injuries such as Achilles tendinitis and tibial tendinitis – tendons that attach to the inner and outer aspects of the ankle are among the most common causes of ankle pain. The fracture of one or more of the three bones that make up the ankle joint can also be the source of pain. If you use a health application that measures the number of steps per day you’re taking, and your foot hurts to do something as simple as walk, then this article will guide you through the process of diagnosing, making some assumptions about the source of your problems based on the locations of the pain, and treating a majority of those pains.

Home Treatment for Foot and Ankle Pain

Depending on the diagnosis, you will have to wait until the final remedy for your pain can be reached. There are some ankle problems or injuries that you can treat yourself. In other cases, the only remedy may have to be a regimen of therapy chosen by a specialist. The first and immediate cure that you can do is to elevate your foot slightly higher than the rest of your body. When your foot is in a swollen state, you have to avoid standing or walking until the swelling fades away. Putting ice on the painful part of your body is an immediate measure that you can take. This should be done for about twenty to thirty minutes once or twice a week, whatever is most convenient for you. An ankle sprain can occur anytime and anywhere, whether at home, at the workplace, or in the street. In case it does occur, you can have a better care plan by knowing some home treatment techniques. For foot ankle pain treatment at home, rest, ice, compression, and elevation (RICE) are effective methods to alleviate discomfort.

Ankle pain and foot pain are common complaints for people of all ages. Whether it is caused by a sprain, arthritis, cancer, or any other ailments you might have, your feet and your ankles are affected all the same. One of the first things that you can do when your foot is aching is to inquire about an ankle specialist in Singapore. A general practitioner can always be an option too, but someone who specializes in the ankle area can attend to your ailment far better. If your foot problem arises from an injury or any form of sprain, or if the pain reaches an intolerable level, one of the options that you might face is to have it evaluated and examined by a doctor. You should not waste any more time because this might make matters worse. The cause of the pain should be detected at the earliest possible time.

Treating Foot Pain Tendonitis

Proper ankle pain diagnosis often requires a thorough physical examination and imaging studies like X-rays or MRIs. While inflammation from tendonitis is associated with a change in cell proliferation and regeneration, many of the impairments in movement found with the condition are from muscle impairments. One way to improve muscle performance is to get rid of the inflammation and then utilize eccentric exercises. Eccentric exercises are when the muscle is loaded under tension as it lengthens. To clarify, concentric exercises cause the muscles to tighten (muscle insertion moves towards the center of the body). Eccentric exercises are the opposites – as the muscle lengthens to reduce the tension. Eccentric exercises have been found extremely effective in managing such tendonitis, not just in recovery, but in developing muscles near the tendon. A patient with foot tendonitis may develop quite a bit of atrophy. The tendonitis is resolved with rest and relatively quickly the athlete is back in training. But significantly weak muscles associated with the recovered site are just waiting to cause a reinjury. Concentric exercises are not very effective in developing these muscles. The force of the rebound is so great on muscles that the compensating motion increases when antagonistic muscles must contract.

Tendonitis is an inflammation of a tendon – in your case, a tendon on your foot or ankle. Because the feet and the ankles are composed of over a hundred tendons, there are many different places on your foot or ankle where you can get a case of tendonitis. Tendonitis can be difficult to differentiate from other foot and ankle problems, including the repetitive kicking of balls in games like soccer. Injury can occur to the extensor tendons. Additionally, the plantar fascia of the arch of the foot is susceptible to tendonitis. When this arch pain occurs in the beginning of walking, it can be very painful. After activity, as the pain in the arch tendonitis resolves with rest. When standing on the toes with the calf and arch raised, the pain is transmitted through the plantar fascia. For each step, impacts of the feet reverberate up to the plantar fascia. Hip and lumbar spine injuries can impact the loading of the legs and feet, greatly affecting the forces through the bottom of the feet. Effective foot pain tendonitis treatment includes rest, anti-inflammatory medications, and specific stretching exercises.