Pain in Back of Heel of Foot Treatment [Causes, Symptoms & Best Treatment]
Do you have pain in the back of the heel pain? We go over the TOP causes & The 100% best home treatment options for Achilles tendonitis & Bone PAIN!
Table of Contents
Achilles Tendon & Back of Heel Pain
Back of the Heel Pain Causes:
Back of the heel pain is most commonly caused by the Achilles tendon and back of the calcaneus damage.
The most common causes of back heel pain are:
- Fat pad atrophy can lead to calcaneus bone pain.
- Insertional Achilles tendinitis pain.
- Achilles tendinitis 2-6 cm above the heel bone.
- An Achilles tendon strain or rupture.
- Nerve impingement or entrapment in the heel.
- Achilles tendinosis.
- Back of the heel spur pain.
- Achilles tendon bursitis.
- Plantar fasciitis.
Achilles Tendonitis Symptoms:
- Achilles tendonitis symptoms can be a pain in the morning when you first wake up.
- Pain when trying to bend the foot up as the Achilles tendon inserts into the back of the heel.
- Worsening inflammation and tenderness while standing and walking for long periods of time.
- Improvement when wearing good shoes, good orthotics, and supportive sandals.
Pain in Back of Heel of Foot – This guide will show you how to get rid of your pain very quickly and easily. Start getting better now!
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Goal #1:
Decrease The PAIN and INFLAMMATION!
Decrease the inflammation in the area is needed before we do anything else. So don’t worry about stretching or shoes right now, that will come soon!
Start Icing The Most Tender Area:
Ice is about more than just reducing the pain. Ice is all about decreasing the activity of harmful inflammatory mediators in your arch.
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What it does:
- This will increase healing time.
- This will decrease pain.
- This will keep harmful inflammatory cells out.
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How to do it:
- Freeze a plastic bottle of water.
- Set up a towel while you watch TV.
- Wear socks if it is too cold on the skin (careful if poor sensation or blood flow).
- Roll it for 15-20 minutes.
The 15-20 minute time frame initially constricts the blood vessels decreasing flow. This allows less cells to settle in that area. Then they rebound and open up flushing out the cells that were previously there.
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Cool Water Baths:
This is the same principle as icing your foot, but just a different way to do it.
What it does:
- This will increase healing time.
- This will decrease pain.
- This will keep harmful inflammatory cells out.
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How to do it:
- Fill a tub with cold water.
- Fill it with ice.
- Soak your foot for 15-20 minutes.
- Careful if it is too cold!
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The 15-20 minute time frame initially constricts the blood vessels decreasing flow. This allows less cells to settle in that area. Then they rebound and open up flushing out the cells that were previously there.
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Anti-inflammatory Medication:Â
Take a 2 week course of anti-inflammatory medication. This will help switch your body from “breaking down mode” to “building up mode”.
What it does:
- This will increase healing time.
- This will decrease pain.
- This will prevent inflammatory cells from functioning properly.
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How to do it:
- Get your anti-inflammatory of choice (Acetaminophen is not one!)
- Check with your physician or pharmacist if you are healthy enough to do this.
- Take a 2 week course without missing a dose, if you miss any doses- it will not work!
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The goal of this treatment is not for pain relief! Most guys especially say they don’t need it for the pain or that it doesn’t even help that much, but this is to help your tissues heal faster, not so much for the pain relief. Anti-inflammatory medications like Advil, Ibuprofen, Motrin or Aspirin all help speed up the healing process by stopping inflammatory cells in your body from further destroying tissues.
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Massage The Tender Area:
Massaging your feet for 5-10 minutes with a tennis ball or with your hands will help. This will help break up microscopic scar tissue and help improve blood flow.
What it does:
- This will increase healing time.
- This will decrease pain.
- This will help flush out inflammatory cells.
- It will help break up microscopic scar tissue.
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How to do it:
- Get a tennis ball or golf ball.
- Roll it around your arch against the floor.
- Do this for as long as feels good while watching TV.
Just get in there and feel for uneven or painful tissue and the simple act of pushing against it in a perpendicular fashion and stroking helps move lymph fluid and breaks up the micro-scar tissue that is present.
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How long should I do these Pain in Back of Heel of Foot Treatments?
- Continue these for as many days or weeks as it takes to start decreasing the pain.
- Remember it can take many weeks or even months to get better.
- It can take proportionately long to fix the inflammation and keep it away as you have had it. Some people have had this pain for many decades! (But don’t worry, we will make it faster…)
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2)Keep The Inflammation Away
This guide includes techniques to keep the pain away after decreasing the inflammation.
- Stretching
- Shoes
- Night Splints
- Low Dye Strapping
- Over the counter inserts.
Good Luck with your Pain in Back of Heel of Foot Treatment!
Back of the heel pain treatment:
Best Back of Heel Pain Treatment:
- There are usually two phases to treating back of the heel pain.
- The two phases of treatment include controlling the acute inflammation and correcting the biomechanics, which led to the problem in the first place.
- If the tendons and ligaments are inflamed, they are almost frozen in place and cannot function properly.
- Once the inflammation is decreased, we need to correct the biomechanical causes to ensure that the Achilles tendon can never become overworked and inflamed again!
- This doesn’t matter whether it’s The back of the heel spur, fat pad atrophy, insertional Achilles tendinitis, Achilles tendinitis, or even Achilles tendinosis.
- If you do have an Achilles tendon rupture or tear, seeing podiatrist care immediately.
Achilles Tendon Natural Treatment:
Massage & Ice Products:
- Ice is an excellent option that can be safe for almost everyone.
- There is some debate about whether icing is worth doing, but this can help limit the need for medications and keep your options open for chronic pain.
- This works great for your arch, less for the ball of the foot.
- Manual massage on the Achilles tendon & calf muscle is a natural treatment that can also be considered physical therapy for your back of the heel pain.
- This works well for calf muscle pain and Achilles tendon pain.
- The more muscle and ligament tissue there is, the better ice will work there.
Menthol Based Gels:
- Biofreeze is one of our favorites.
- These gels have been studied to work 2x as long as ice.
- This works great for the ball of the foot.
- This can be very effective for pain relief, but this can decrease inflammation in the calf muscle and Achilles tendon.
Massage Sticks:
- These can work great for loosening your muscles.
- This allows less tightness and pressure onto the plantar fascia and heel.
- This is very effective for the arch, the gastrocnemius, calf muscle, and the hamstring and thigh muscles.
- This also works very well for the gluteus muscles if you are having butt cheek or hip pain.
- The massage stick can break up lumps in your Achilles tendon and heel pain.
Remove the Achilles tendon tightness.
- The key is to prevent future pain stress and trauma to the Achilles tendon muscle.
- This means keeping you active while keeping stress off of your Achilles tendon. This will prevent future re-injury and the development of plantar fasciitis.
- If you can get rid of the pain and swelling, this will let you start walking normally.
- If you can walk normally, the vast majority of your pain should gradually start to go away.
- The best way to ensure that your plantar fascia, foot, and ankle ligaments are not overworked is to support them.
- The best way to support them is to use great orthotics and great shoes.
- Some people may also need to rely on supportive ankle braces and other supportive modalities.
Best Shoes for Back of Heel Pain:
- Getting a great supportive pair of Achilles tendonitis shoes will ensure that there is pressure removed from the heel and plantar fascia region.
- This is especially important if you have plantar fasciitis, heel spur pain, or Achilles tendonitis as well.
- Consider Achilles tendonitis shoes combined with a good supportive orthotic for best pain relief!
- The following link will show you what our favorites are.
Best Achilles Tendonitis Insoles:
- These are our recommended orthotics for Achilles tendonitis.
- Custom orthotics can work very well, but they should not be the first line of treatment due to the cost.
- There are different types of different shoes.
- Women’s shoes usually need a less bulky orthotic but allow for less correction.
- A full-length orthotic requires a running shoe, boot, or comfortable walking/dress shoe.
- We recommend doing everything you can to get a good supportive shoe that can fit a full-length orthotic.
- A further home remedy tip for Achilles tendonitis pain is cutting out a hole where the nodule uses scissors or a knife. Be careful and start with a very low-cost orthotic.
Best Full Length Achilles tendonitis Orthotics:
- These will only work in wider shoes or a good supportive running shoe.
- This will not work in sandals, flats, or most women’s dress shoes.
Best Dress Shoe Achilles tendonitisOrthotics:
- These are a great choice for dress orthotics.
Best 3/4 Length Achilles tendonitis Orthotics:
- These are great options for women’s dress shoes and thinner shoes.
- These are not the most supportive pair of orthotics.
Get A Great Dynamic Stretch:
- It is possible to stretch on your own, but these products can also really help!
- This will take pressure off of the ball of your foot.
- This form of the back of the heel pain physical therapy breaks up the scar tissue.
- We personally prefer this method of stretching.
Get A Great Static Stretch:
- These devices are great for stretching while you are resting.Â
- This is an excellent Achilles tendonitis physical therapy that you can do at home.
- This will also help take pressure off of the ball of your foot.
- This works great for plantar fasciitis.
- The static night splint can use it while watching TV or at night time.
Best Heel Compression Brace:
- A good compression brace can stabilize your foot from turning outward.
- This prevents your foot from pronation.
- The pronated foot will turn your foot outward, in your foot will rub on the outside of the shoe.
- This has solved their pain for many of her patients and is very comfortable to wear inside your shoe.
- This solves both pain and outward pronation for a relatively low cost.
Best Heel Stability Brace:
- The stability brace goes a little bit further than the compression brace to stop your foot from turning out.
- This takes the pressure off of your heel and plantar fascia.
- At the same time, this is a little bit bulkier and does not affect every shoe.
- We find people are a little bit happier trying the compression brace before the stability brace.
Severe Achilles tendonitis Pain:
- If you think you might have a broken heel, a calcaneal stress fracture, or something of similar severity, these products might help!
- Always remember to see a foot and ankle specialist like a podiatrist if you have plantar fasciitis or more severe pain!
Plantar Fascia Tear, Broken Heel Bone, Achilles Tendon Tear:
- If you have a traumatic injury such as a torn plantar fascia ligament, calcaneus stress fracture, heel fracture, or insertional Achilles tendon injury: consider protecting your foot!
- The best way to do this is, of course, to see your podiatrist and get evaluated with an x-ray, ultrasound, and potentially even an MRI or CT scan.
- If you cannot do so, it may benefit you to be in a cast, fractured boot, or even keep the weight off of it with a rolling knee scooter or other protective devices.
- We as podiatrists frequently take patients off work for very long periods of time when they suffer a traumatic injury. Unfortunately, there is no other way around us in labor jobs.
- If you have a sit-down job, there are ways to get people back to work quicker, but this can be not easy otherwise.
Heel Injury Boot Treatment:
- There are pros and cons to using a boot to treat your heel injury. The Pros are that your injured heel will hopefully have a chance to heal gradually! If you are immobilized too long, the cons are that you will gradually become stiff and overworked to your other leg.
- Our favorite fracture boots and their supplies:
Offloading and Scooter treatment:
- These are favorite knee scooters and walking devices.
- If your Achilles tendonitis pain is severe, offloading can be very effective until the pain calms down.