Foot Pain

Did you know that as a chiropractor I am trained to adjust literally every joint in your body? Most people assume that chiropractors work is limited to the spine. While it’s true that the majority of the work that I do is spinal related (probably 90%)  I still see a good number of issues that need adjusting outside of the spine. People will often ask to have their feet, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers worked on. While I find working on all of these areas to be quite beneficial, the area that I find to be of greatest importance to work on is the feet. There are several reasons why this is. The most obvious reason is that all of your body weight is on your feet. If you have any structural issues that arise in your feet it’s quite common for it to affect the entire kinetic chain all the way up to the spine. I’ve often found that by adjusting the feet we can eliminate recurring patterns within the spine and often get better and quicker results. One case I had, I remember the person came in with severe headaches and neck pain. After several weeks of care we got improvement but we hit a plateau where the headaches and neck pain wouldn’t fully resolve. It was at that time when the patient told me of also having plantar fasciitis. I started adjusting the feet and recommending home exercises for the feet and in short order we were able to break through that plateau and the patient’s headaches and neck pain were soon eliminated completely. It appeared that the abnormal gait pattern that arose as a result of her plantar fasciitis (which was caused by structural issues in the foot) was causing a kinetic chain issue and affected the patient’s neck as a result which was causing the headaches. Daily I’m amazed by how connected the body is to every other part.

The human body has 206 bones…. there are 26 bones in each foot…… that means that a quarter of all the bones in your body are in your feet. That is a lot of different joint articulations. You couple that with your entire body weight being dispersed over all of those bones and joints….that equates to a lot of potential problems. It is very common to see runners and those that walk lots come in and require frequent foot adjustments. We will also soon see people changing their footwear and start wearing flip flops/sandals or going more barefoot. The foot, not being use to the new footwear, will inevitably struggle with the new biomechanics. This is one of the reasons why foot pain is more prevalent in the summer than the winter. It is also the reason why I end up adjusting more feet during the summer months.

If you’re suffering with recurring foot pain or think that your feet could be contributing to kinetic chain issues further up the body then let me know the next time you’re in the office and I’ll take a peek and see if there is a structural issue that I can adjust to aid in your body’s healing.