23 Jun Diagnosing and Treating Your Ankle and Foot Pain
When ankle and foot pain strike, it can, literally, knock you off your feet. The foot is a complicated structure involving 26 bones, 33 joints, muscles, tendons, blood vessels, nerves, and lymphatics. Diagnosing the source of your foot and/or ankle pain requires looking for pain patterns and the primary locations of your pain. When there is pain, the body reacts by changing the way it moves or functions in an effort to reduce the pain. Over compensations or bio-mechanical changes can impact normal movement and result in further injury in the foot or other parts of the body. Mile High Spine & Pain Center in Broomfield is committed to helping you find the possible causes of your ankle and foot pain. Our experienced chiropractic physicians can narrow down the possibilities based on your symptoms and testing.
What are the Most Common Causes of Ankle and Foot Pain?
The list of possible causes of ankle and foot pain would span a couple pages in length–there are many culprits that can endanger the health of the joints and structures involved in the foot. Your best approach to eliminating the pain is enlisting a specialist to help you isolate why and what is happening. With that said, most foot and ankle problems stem from injury, overuse or inflammation in the tissues and structures of the foot. Arthritis is commonly associated with foot pain and can cause various symptoms from acute pain, to dull aching, or even peripheral neuropathy–numbness or tingling symptoms. The good news is, there is help available and the body’s amazing ability to heal and restore can get you back to pain-free living in no time! The one thing you don’t want to do is ignore the pain. Unresolved ankle and foot pain can escalate into a more serious situation if not treated promptly and correctly. Mile High Spine & Pain Center specializes in offering you non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical treatment options for your ankle and foot pain.
Preventing Ankle and Foot Pain
One of the best ways to combat ankle and foot pain is with prevention. Mile High Spine & Pain Center likes to get ahead of your pain by making sure you are educated on how you can prevent some of the more common injuries and problems related to your feet. During your initial consultation and evaluation with us, we will discuss with you your patient history, lifestyle and fitness habits. This interview is important because it helps us know how we can best help you avoid injury by knowing what you may be at higher risk for. Taking extra steps to take care of your feet will pay rewarding dividends. Some patients are at greater risk for developing ankle and foot pain if they:
- Regularly run without proper footwear and on hard surfaces.
- Don’t incorporate adequate recovery time after strenuous activities–the body needs time to heal and repair itself.
- Wear inadequate or insufficient foot support for their foot structure/needs.
- Take medications that cause foot pain as a side effect.
Treatment Options for Ankle and Foot Pain
Much of what is prescribed by our chiropractic physicians at Mile High Spine & Pain Center to treat your ankle and foot pain symptoms will depend on your particular condition and the cause for it. Some foot pain is resolved quickly while other pain that is more chronic in nature may require a longer treatment plan. Applications of ice are advised to help with swelling, and resting the injured foot also helps resolve the pain with time. You will receive a full sports injury assessment when you visit our office so that we can help get you back into your regular activities as quickly as possible. In some cases, the American Podiatric Medical Association recommends the use of an orthopedic insert to help change the mechanics of your foot or to give it extra support. If your condition warrants using one of these inserts, we can discuss with you your options. Our office will educate you on improvements you could make in your exercise habits, form, and frequency to help you see positive, pain-free results. We also incorporate deep tissue massage to relieve stress, increase blood flow, free tightened muscles, improve mobility and flexibility and reduce pain. Vibration therapy is used to help fractures deep in the ankle or foot to heal more quickly.
Free Ankle and Foot Pain Consultation
If you are suffering from ankle and foot pain, our experienced team at Mile High Spine & Pain Center is trained to help you recover and get back in the game. Mile High Spine & Pain Center provides customized treatment plans for ankle and foot pain for patients in the Westminster and Broomfield area and will help you understand where your symptoms are coming from and what needs to happen for improvement. Call (720) 507-0080 today to schedule your free consultation!