TENS Therapy for Plantar Fasciitis

Are you spending a lot of time on your feet, resulting in them getting sore?

There are different issues that can affect our feet and one very common one is Plantar Fasciitis; a heel ache that can make for it difficult and even agonizingly painful to stay on your feet.

So, let’s learn about Plantar Fasciitis and see how to treat heel pain and get back on your feet soon!

Plantar Fasciitis is a heel pain that occurs as a result of an inflammation of the ligaments that run from the heels to the toes. This band of tissue, called Fascia, supports the muscles and absorbs the shock when walking and if stretched it can have little tears on it’s surface and produce pain.

In general, it affects middle age people, but also people that spend a lot of time on their feet, like athletes, soldiers, teachers etc.

While it is painful and can impede doing physical activities that require standing, walking or runing, it is usually self-treatable.

The characteristic symptoms of Plantar Fasciitis is pain in your heel that usually manifests in the morning, as you take your first steps and also after long periods of sitting down.

Usually, it will improve during the day if you are standing up but it will worsen if you spend a long time sitting down.

As we mentioned, Plantar Fasciitis happens when the tissue that forms the Fascia gets stretched. While this condition can occur without any obvious cause, there are some factors that can increase the risks of Plantar Fasciitis , they are:

• Walking barefoot on hard surfaces
• Obesity
• Occupations that requires standing up for longer periods
• An excess of physical activity that places a lot of stress in your feet
• Foot characteristics: flat feet, a high arch or even an unusual pattern of walking
• Ageing

There is a variety of treatments for Plantar Fasciitis. You can do these things at home to ease the pain and help your foot heal faster:

• Resting, so you can reduce the inflammation
• Wear cushioned shoes or supportive inserts
• Pain relievers and anti-inflammatories
• Exercises that stretch your foot heel, your calves, Achilles Tendon and strengthen your muscles
• TENS Therapy

TENS Therapy is an efficient way for drug-free pain relief. TENS (Transcutaneous Electro Nerve Stimulation) therapy uses electrical stimulation to reduce and manage pain by improving blood flow and blocking the body’s pain signals.

TENS Machines provide fast and complete foot pain relief. They work by delivering mild electrical currents across the surface of heel and calves through the shelf-attaching electrodes. This transcutaneous electrical stimulation causes the muscles in the feet and leg to contact and relax at regular intervals, relieving pain and reducing the inflammation.

TENS Machine can help with Plantar Fasciitis by:

• Providing pain relief
• Improving circulation
• Reducing inflammation
• Accelerate healing

In Plantar Fasciitis, the pain runs along the bottom of the foot, and in some cases goes up to the calves.

So, TENS electrodes should be applied on the curve of the feet, on the lower part of the impact points, or along the edges of the impact points.

1. Clean the area to be treated and dry to ensure maximum electrical stimulation
2. Apply the self-adhesive pads on the heel and connect the electrodes to the TENS control unit
3. Select one of the pain-relief programs and start
4. At program completion, re-assess the pain and repeat the program if necessary
5. You can use your TENS Machine as often as needed

Correct placement of the pads is important as it can guarantee effectiveness.

In the case of Plantar Fasciitis, one pad should be placed on the bottom of the affected foot and the other on the calf or on the side of foot.

Also, the pads are usually placed under the middle of the foot, where the plantar fascia ligament connects the heel to the front of the foot.

Sources

• WebMD. “Plantar Fasciitis: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment”. Retrieved from Plantar Fasciitis: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment (webmd.com) 03/06/2022