Well, there are a number of things you could do… so how do you know which way to go?
When you start to get any sort of pain or injury, whether it be your Achilles tendon, your plantar fascia, or your arthritis in your big toe, you should always try to figure out WHY.
If you can identify the reason as to why your pain has developed in the first place, then that puts you in the box seat to being able to manage it!
By understanding WHY then you can work out how to get to the root cause of the pain, rather than just fixing the symptoms.
Think back to the first time you cut your finger while preparing food, or the first time you burnt yourself on the stove as a child. What do you do? Yes you put a band-aid on it, or you run it under cold water… this helps with the pain and makes you feel good! What’s more important (that you don’t realise at the time) is the lesson you learnt.
WHY did you cut your finger? You were using the knife too close to your other hand, or you were being careless.
WHY did you burn yourself on the stove? It was still too hot.
Equipped with this new knowledge and power you’re less likely to have the same pain again because of the lesson you learnt the first time.Now this may be an over-simplistic way of looking at it, but the idea of learning and understanding holds very true as to how you can best improve your foot pain!
If you have recently developed a pain in your foot, think back to when this pain first developed, and the period of time leading up to it.
What were your activity levels like? Did they change? Did you all of a sudden do more walking, more running? Did you start wearing new shoes? Did you start doing more shifts at work, or for longer hours? Are you more stressed, have you got a lot going on at the moment? Have you put on weight recently? Are you doing less exercise than normal? Have you started standing a particular way or doing a particular repetitive movement throughout the day? Have you been unwell, or had any other injuries that may have caused you to move a little differently? These are the sorts of questions that practitioners ask their clients so that they know how to give the best advice. If you start to ask these questions of yourself, and you gain the knowledge and understanding as to how this pain has developed in the first place, it becomes a ton easier to know what to do and how to fix it.
If you are able to reflect and learn, you may not even need to see health professional. You may work out the answer to your problem yourself!
If you don’t have the luxury of being able to change these big lifestyle/behavioural factors (e.g. its not so simple to just work less, or exercising the amount you do really helps your wellbeing), this is where a health practitioner may be helpful to have a closer look and teach you a few things so you can recover from foot pain and get back to doing what you want to do again.
Written by:
Daniel Monteleone
Podiatrist, Strength and Conditioning Coach
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