New treatment for plantar fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis can do more than cause pain, it can cause you to avoid walking, reducing your mobility and activities. That shouldn’t be because one thing almost always leads to another. Up until this point, there really isn’t a gold standard of treatment – meaning there isn’t one type of treatment that most doctors will try with confidence, but a new therapy may become just that.

According to a presentation at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, combining both ultrasound-guided technique called dry needling plus injecting a steroid, is proving to be 95% effective in relieving the pain.

According to a press release issued by the Radiological Society,

After injection of a small amount of anesthesia, the anesthetic needle is used to repeatedly puncture the site where the patient feels the pain. This technique is known as dry-needling. Dry-needling creates a small amount of local bleeding that helps to heal the fasciitis. Lastly, a steroid is injected around the fascia to eliminate the inflammation and pain. The technique is performed with ultrasound guidance to improve accuracy and to avoid injecting the steroids directly into the plantar fascia, which could result in rupture.

After the 15-minute procedure, symptoms disappeared for 42 of the study’s 44 patients (95 percent) within three weeks.

Other treatments that have been tried but without great success begin with rest, night splints, and arch supports but then may go on to shockwave therapy, which is very hard on the foot and not always effective. Surgery is also an option if nothing else works.