Foot Tendonitis
July 10, 2007
The Achilles tendon, the posterior tibial tendon, the anterior tibial tendon and the peroneal tendon are the four different tendons in your foot. Tendonitis can occur in any of the four tendons. Out of the four tendons in the foot, the most common tendon where tendonitis occurs is in the Achilles tendon. The Achilles tendon connects the biggest and major calf muscles in the back of the heel bone.
There are many ways of diagnosing Achilles tendonitis. The symptoms of the tendonitis are pain and softness anywhere along the back of the tendon, when you can only limit the flexibility of the ankle. There may be heat and redness over the tendon which is clear to see which could indicate to you that you have tendonitis. A growth over the tendon known as a nodule growth, it could form over the tendon. When you move the ankle a cracking sound might be heard or given out, which indicates tendonitis. The most common way of getting tendonitis is if the calf muscles are tight or tired. If you do a warm up for a sport event and don’t exercise the muscles properly. Overtraining or lots of running, especially hills or uneve ground can also cause the injury. Finally speed work and the type of running shoes you wear could be the difference between tendonitis or none tendonitis.
There are several treatments for tendonitis of the Achilles. The first and most obvious to people who have it would be to stop any sort of running that was done before picking up the injury. Take a medication of some sort, preferably aspirin or ibuprofen. Placing an ice pack over the area for 15-25 minutes several times a day to cool the area down and to subside the inflammation are other methods to use.
Oiling or massaging the area affected could also ease the pain. Semicircles of rubbing oil into the area are a technique that many top physical therapists use. Do this three times a day and keep the oil away from the knotted tissue and it should help ease the pain and keep doing this until the area has healed. Once the nodule growth is gone, you can stretch off the calf muscles. Whatever you fell like, don’t start the running again until you can do a little experiment called toe raises again without any sort of pain affecting you. After this you can start jumping through skipping ropes and jumping jacks, and then gradually pick up the running again. Once the nodule is gone, stretch the calf muscles. Don’t start running again until you can do toe raises again without pain. Next, move on to skipping rope, then jumping jacks and gradually begin running again.