From ankle sprains to metatarsalgia, feet and ankles can suffer from trouble of many kinds, relating to bones, joints, ligaments and nerves. The key to dealing with foot pain is to understand not only what part is causing the pain, but why it is happening. Osteopaths look at the overall picture to find the root cause of foot and ankle pain so they can provide long-lasting relief.
Biomechanics in foot and ankle pain
Although pain in the feet and ankles has a wide variety of causes, osteopaths aim to deal with the underlying mechanisms that are triggering those causes or allowing them to persist.
That means understanding the stressors affecting your feet. Your gait biomechanics can be the starting point of strain and pain in the feet.
For example, your gluteal muscles control the roll of your legs as you walk, run or climb stairs. If gluteal weakness allows your knee to shift inwards, your lower leg will roll in too, and your ankle will follow.
This repetitive stress on the ankle causes microtrauma and weakness, leaving you vulnerable to sprains, muscle strain and tendinopathy.
Alternatively, poor motion of the fibula bone can lead to both knee and ankle pain and affect gait. This slender bone in the lower leg connects to the side of the knee joint and forms the outer part of the ankle joint. It helps dissipate force during gait, and it shifts and rotates to allow normal movement of the ankle joint.
Trauma to the fibula, or fixation of its joints, then, can prevent normal motion and lead to pain and stiffness. As part of our osteopathic treatment, we assess fibular motion and can mobilise the bone to ensure it is moving freely and appropriately.
These are just some of the underlying causes of foot pain or ankle pain. There are many other similar factors that can contribute to the onset or persistence of problems.
Restrictions or problems in the back, hips and pelvis can have a knock-on effect on the knees, ankles and feet. In this way, it’s important to evaluate whole-body function to fully understand foot and ankle pain such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles or peroneal tendinopathy, ligament sprains, stress fractures, metatarsalgia and neuropathy.
The OCHK approach
Our team of osteopaths regularly treat people with foot and ankle pain of all types.
We’ll look at the way you move to see if any areas are not functioning correctly, if there are any weaknesses, or if you have significant left-to-right variations. Along with an understanding of how the pain is affecting you day-to-day, we can then determine which factors are primarily influencing your symptoms.
Using a combination of techniques such as massage and muscle energy techniques to lengthen and strengthen muscles, manipulation to normalise movement in the joints of the foot, ankle, knee and beyond, and advice on how to manage your condition at home, we can provide comprehensive and long-lasting relief from pain.
Understanding foot and ankle pain
Pain in the feet and ankles can originate in bones, ligaments, muscles, nerves and tendons. But all these painful conditions can be triggered by strain patterns that work through the body from above.
Finding and unwinding these tensions, imbalances and stresses forms the keystone to successful treatment for the feet and ankles.
Osteopaths understand the biomechanical factors that can result in foot and ankle pain. They use specific techniques to target these problem areas in the feet, ankles and beyond.
Don’t struggle with foot and ankle pain, then. Book a treatment with one of our experts today and let us help you get back on your feet!