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Chiropractic Treatments Can Help When You Have Plantar Fasciitis: Here's How

Chiropractic Treatments Can Help When You Have Plantar Fasciitis: Here's How, Dixon Chiropractic in Oakland Park, Florida

Your heels take the brunt of the impact when you walk, run, or play. While this can sometimes lead to minor aches and sprains, in other cases, injury to the heel can lead to a condition called plantar fasciitis.

But what exactly is this condition, and how can you treat it?

Your feet have a band of tissues that connect your heel bone to the bones of your toes. These connective tissues are called plantar fascia. This group of tissues provides support to the arches of your feet. When you overstrain or injure or sprain your plantar fascia, you develop a terrible heel pain, which is commonly called as plantar fasciitis.

Four ways in which chiropractors can help you manage plantar fasciitis

Typically, for minor cases of plantar fasciitis, sufferers try a range of treatments like topical ointments, gentle heel and leg exercises, icing of the heels, and changing of footwear. But, if your heel pain is unbearable and other treatments don’t provide you any relief, you should consider visiting a chiropractor for help. Here’s why:

Chiropractors can help reduce adhesions with muscle scraping
The tissues and muscles may become stiff and inflamed with plantar fasciitis. These adhesions caused by the fascia creates pain in the heel that can travel throughout the foot. Chiropractic treatment can be used to scrape the heels breaking up the adhesions. This will not only reduce the stress on your plantar fascia but will also reduce any pain and inflammation you may be experiencing.

Chiropractic treatments can improve feet structure with orthotics
Heel pain, including plantar fasciitis, can occur due to wrong foot placement during physical activities like running or swimming. This wrong foot placement often occurs due to genetics, the structure of the legs, or weight.

During chiropractic treatment, Dr. Ashley Dixon properly identifies structural misalignments of the foot and provides orthotics to improve structure. This will enable your muscles to function smoothly, as they should, and ensure that you land your foot in the right way.

Chiropractic treatments will help you develop the correct sleep posture
Most people tend to point their toes downwards when they are asleep. Depending on whether you’re on your back, your side, or your stomach, this stretching of the heels can strain your plantar fascia.

Chiropractors, through techniques like body adjustment, can help you develop the right sleep posture, which can prevent the stretching of the heels.

Chiropractors can assist you in the right spinal alignment
Foot pain can lead to or be a consequence of lower back, hip, knee, or ankle pain. Any problem in the spine can affect the functioning of your entire body, including the feet. Aligning the spine is the best defense to accompany any plantar fasciitis treatment.

At Dixon Chiropractic, Dr. Ashley Dixon will make a complete spinal adjustment to remove any restrictions that you may have in your lower back.

She will use techniques like acupuncture and spinal-pelvis realignment to stabilize your entire body. This will reduce the stress on your legs and your heels, reducing plantar fasciitis pain. 

If you’d like to schedule a treatment, feel free to contact us today.

Do You Suffer From Muscle Knots? Here's How You Can Treat It

Do You Suffer From Muscle Knots? Here's How You Can Treat It, Dixon Chiropractic in Oakland Park, Florida

Muscle knots can be really painful. They're hard, bumpy nodules of muscles that have tightened and fused. They are hard to the touch and when touched, can spread a piercing pain shooting across the body.

They can occur on areas of the body that experience high stress. These typically happen to be the back, neck, shoulders, calf muscles, and shins. Some reasons why muscle knots occur are:

Poor body posture
Injury to the body
Psychological stress
Joint & ligament problems
Lack of sleep & fatigue
Poor nutrition
Lack of water intake
Prolonged standing, sitting or squatting
5 ways to get rid of muscle knots and experience pain relief

Use an ice pack or heating pad on the area

Cold and heat both have healing properties. They can relax the muscles and reduce the tension in your body. Even the swelling in the muscle knots can be reduced dramatically. This can help your muscles loosen up and therefore not get knotted. So, as best practice, always keep a heating pad or an ice pack handy at home.

Do light stretching and exercise 

Gentle stretching, light yoga, and breathing exercises can open up your muscles and loosen the muscle nodules. Regular light stretching can reduce the chronic stress on your muscles and allow the proper flow of blood to the affected area. This can relieve pain and reduce the tension in your muscles, thereby untangling your muscle knots.

Eat the right way 

A lot of people don’t know that muscle knots and nutrition are directly related to each other. The truth is, eating the right diet, can give you the essential nutrients you need to reduce the pain and soreness of your muscle knots.

Foods and beverages like berries, eggs, milk, fish, broccoli, pomegranates, and turmeric-infused foods, contain nutrients that specialize in tissue repair. Including green tea in your diet can help you manage stress and in-turn relieve the tension in your muscles.

Visit a chiropractor for acupuncture or massage therapy 

Finally, the best and most effective solution to muscle knots is chiropractic care. Regularly visiting a chiropractor for acupuncture treatment or massage therapy can rid your entire body of its pent-up tension.

Acupuncture treatments are designed to provide deep stress relief to tight muscles. In acupuncture, and the chiropractor works to relieve the stress built-up inside the muscle. Acupuncture also stimulates endorphins in the body, which reduces the tightness of the muscles in the affected areas.

Massage therapy is perfect for full-body stress release. Here, gentle movements are used to reduce the soreness that your muscles experience due to day-to-day activities. The massage movements stimulate energy and blood flow in the body. This, in turn, reduces the strain that the muscles experience and untangles muscle knots.

Undergoing weekly or bi-monthly chiropractic sessions can prevent acute stress from setting in and keep away muscle knots.

Self-massage

One of the most cost-efficient treatments for muscle knots is body massage. Try massaging the areas of your body, where you feel the knotted muscles. This can greatly relieve the built-up tension and loosen the muscles.

The right self-massage technique is to press firmly on the muscle knots and move your fingers in a circular direction. You can even purchase an ergonomically-designed roller, which you can place between the wall/floor and your back and roll your body on.

Remember to be gentle on your neck. Or better still, visit a chiropractor for relieving neck muscle knots.

At Dixon Chiropractic, we can help!

Dr. Ashley Dixon has extensive experience helping patients experience relief from muscle knots. Contact her to book an appointment.