Foot & Ankle Pain
Specialist
Injuries to your foot or ankle can make it difficult to walk and often turn into chronic pain problems. Chronic injuries can lead to problems higher up in the knees or hips. If you have foot or ankle pain, sports medicine physician Irwin Abraham, MD, can help. At his practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Dr. Abraham uses manual therapies and cutting-edge prolotherapy treatments to alleviate foot and ankle pain. Call the New York City office today for more information or book an appointment online.
What causes foot and ankle pain?
Foot and ankle pain can result from an acute injury such as a fall that breaks or sprains your ankle. In many cases, foot and ankle pain are due to the gradual deterioration of joint cartilage or connective tissues because of overuse or the aging process.
Even small stresses at the ankle and foot can result in major distress and disability.
Causes of foot and ankle pain include:
Ankle sprains
Typically tendon and ligament injuries are the results of twisting your ankle tendon. Ligament strains are attachments of muscle to bone or of bone-to-bone are the typical injuries, not actually the muscles themselves.
Plantar fasciitis
The plantar fascia is a strip of fibrous connective tissue that supports the arch in your foot. Damage or inflammation to this tissue causes heel pain that can make walking uncomfortable.
Achilles tendon injuries
The Achilles tendon at the back of your lower leg is vulnerable to sports injuries such as tears or ruptures. Chronic irritation of the Achilles tendon can result in inflammation (Achilles tendinitis).
Fractures
Your ankles and feet contain many bones — 26 just in one foot. Sports injuries are common causes of ankle fractures in particular, while crush injuries often affect the feet. You could also get stress fractures ( which are tiny cracks in bones) from overuse, for example, from regularly running on hard surfaces, or from stepping down too hard on the stairs or floor.
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How are foot and ankle pain treated?
The first step in treating foot and ankle pain is the same as elsewhere in the body. Dr. Abraham takes a full history and then performs a comprehensive exam to determine which tissues are injured. Often, more than one site of injury is present.
Treating acute foot and ankle pain typically involves using relative rest, cold or heat for comfort, frequent mobilization of the foot and ankle, gradual exercise as tolerated, medications as needed for pain control, crutches or a brace as needed, and most often, very prompt physical therapy, within a day or two after seeing Dr. Abraham.
Physical therapy is often vital to a good recovery from foot and ankle pain. Dr. Abraham can refer you to a local therapist who has precisely the skills you need for optimal results.
Dr. Abraham never uses steroid injections as they are not useful. Dr. Abraham also specializes in using prolotherapy to treat foot and ankle pain.
How does prolotherapy help with foot and ankle pain?
Prolotherapy is a safe, non-surgical method of stimulating your body's healing processes. Dr. Abraham injects a dextrose or glucose solution with a local anesthetic and sterile water into your body's damaged tissues.
Dr. Abraham uses two types of prolotherapy:
Traditional prolotherapy
Traditional prolotherapy injections can go deep into your tissues. The solution encourages healing cells to come to the injection site, where they multiply to create new tissues. The process takes about six weeks and often needs one or two repetitions..
Perineural injection therapy (PIT)
PIT works along the same lines as traditional prolotherapy, but Dr. Abraham targets nerves that are near the surface of your skin. PIT helps switch off pain nerves to reduce and relieve the severity of your chronic pain, leading to promptly starting regeneration of damaged structures.