The heel is the most important part of the foot, which, in addition to performing support and depreciation functions, serves as the main peripheral part of the lower limb. through it pass many blood vessels, nerve fibers, tendons. The heel, which includes a soft fatty layer, weakens the pressure that occurs during walking or running, thereby protecting the spine from injury. The heel bone is the largest bone of the foot and, at the same time, fragile, very prone to injury and disease.
Situations when the heel hurts in the morning after a sleep, it is painful to step on it and it is necessary to move on tiptoe, arise rarely. Pain can have a different character - be stabbing, acute, dull, pulsating. In addition, there may be a phenomenon where the heel hurts immediately after a long sitting and sleeping, and later, when a person "diverges", the pain subsides. These features, as well as the possible presence of additional symptoms (for example, swelling, redness, growths on the heel, etc.), are taken into account when clarifying the causes of pain and diagnosing.
Why do my heels hurt in the morning after sleeping?
The main diseases that provoke the symptom in question are two pathologies:
- plantar fasciitis;
- heel spur.
With plantar fasciitis, the inflammatory-degenerative process affects the fascia-ligament, which is directly under the skin and connects the calcaneus with the metatarsal bones. The emergence of pathology is associated with excessive loads, leading to damage to the fascia, the appearance of micro-ruptures in it. Most often plantar fasciitis is observed in people whose work is associated with prolonged standing or walking, in people with excess weight, in athletes. The main manifestation of the disease is just the pain in the heel in the morning, immediately after waking, when the first steps are taken, or after a long rest of legs. And then the pain can gradually subside.
The heel spur is the outcome of chronic plantar fasciitis, in which calcium salts accumulate in the area of ​​inflammation, forming a marginal bone growth. Squeezing the surrounding tissue, heel proliferation causes a sharp soreness, which is also most intense in the morning after sleep, after a long rest. The probability of development of this pathology increases with flat feet , problems with the spine, excessive body weight, circulatory disorders in the lower limbs.
Less common causes of pain in the heel in the morning are:
- inflammation or damage to the Achilles (calcaneus) tendon, providing mobility of the ankle joint;
- chronic inflammatory diseases of the joints (Bechterew's disease, psoriatic arthritis, gout, etc.);
- reactive arthritis caused by various infections (usually venereal).
Treatment for pain in the heels in the morning
If you have an unpleasant symptom, you should not postpone the visit to the doctor and start the pathology on its own. It is recommended to consult a traumatologist, a surgeon or a rheumatologist, to undergo the necessary examinations to find out the causal factors.
As a rule, with the majority of pathologies that cause pain in the heel, treatment includes taking anti-inflammatory and analgesic medicines, wearing specially selected orthopedic shoes and insoles, temporarily giving up physical exertion on the legs. To reduce the painful sensation, you should before you get out of bed perform a small warm-up and foot massage, and you can also try to apply ice to the sick heel.