Get Rid Of Your Back And Knee Pain By Fixing Your Flat Feet

Health & Medical Blog

The arches in your feet act as a shock absorber when you walk. They also control the position of your feet and the way they support your legs. Flat feet cause your legs and hips to be out of alignment, which leads to knee and back pain. Here is how to get help with your fallen arches and remove the pain they cause.

Identifying the Cause

There are several reasons you may have lost the arch in your foot. Your foot doctor will do X-rays and other tests to determine the cause. This will help the podiatrist recommend effective treatment options for you. A few of the causes include:

• an injury to the muscles or tendons that hold the bones in your foot in the arch shape
• stretching of the muscles in your foot due to being overweight
• repeated stress on the foot muscles and tendons by exercises or sports
• a bone disease, such as osteoarthritis, that causes the arch to fail

Initial Treatment with Non-Invasive Approaches

Your doctor will first try a number of non-invasive treatments to restore the arch in your foot. These make minor adjustments to your foot to realign your ankles, knees and hips. The change may be enough to alleviate your back and knee pain. Some of the treatments include:

• Custom-orthotics for your shoes - These shoe inserts create an artificial arch to support your foot correctly.
• Physical therapy - A therapist will help you strengthen the muscles in your foot to better hold the arch in place.
• Ankle supports - These devices hold your ankles at the proper angle. The tendons and ligaments may have stretched as a result of your flat feet making your ankles unstable and contributing to your knee and back pain.

Aggressive Treatment with Surgery

When the non-invasive treatments fail to give you relief, surgery can be done to reshape your arch.

• Fusion - The surgeon creates an artificial arch by fusing bones together in your foot. This creates a rigid arch, which doesn't give you the flexibility of a natural arch, but it does hold the arch in place.
• Tendon resection - When the muscles and tendons in your foot have been stressed to the point where they have stretched out and fail to hold your arch, the surgeon can shorten them to pull the arch back into place.
• Tendon repositioning - This generally involves moving the Achilles tendon so it has more leverage in holding the bones in the foot to make the arch.

For more information, contact a local doctor such as Laurel Podiatry Associates, LLC.

23 September 2015