Plantar fasciitis is a pathology of the musculature of the sole of the foot that has been commonly diagnosed in recent years, which is serving to give a name to a very typical ailment of the sole of the foot and which, unfortunately, is used many times to explain ill-defined or unspecific plantar problems.
This term is misused by most health professionals, since the suffix “itis” means inflammation, and laboratory tests clearly indicate that there is no inflamed tissue in this region, but rather degenerated. But it is typical for the patient who is diagnosed with plantar fasciitis to justify a morning pain in the heel is improperly prescribed an anti-inflammatory. The objective is to reduce the inflammation of a tissue that, as we have already said, is not inflamed.
Heel pain can be caused by edema in the calcaneus, alterations in the subcalcaneal fat or even nerve entrapments. Plantar fasciosis, whose meaning is more in line with the degenerative and thickened state of a damaged plantar fascia, is located more in the middle of the arch of the foot, not the heel, and may be motivated by an alteration a little further away from the area where the patient points to his pain: the big toe. A recent study carried out by Spanish scientists from the University of Extremadura has shown how limited dorsal mobility in the joint of the big toe, hallux, with the 1st metatarsal, can motivate excessive tension in this important muscle that covers our plantar vault.
Rubén Sánchez-Gómez is a researcher at UCM-URJC and directs the Pododinámica clinic
