Plantar Fasciitis Diagnosis
The healthcare giver will, after observing your medical examination, do a physical examination of the foot. If applying pressure on the plantar fascia will lead to pain, then plantar fasciitis is more likely the reprobate. If it is tough to lift up your toes, or if you are having a loss of sensation in the foot or tingling, those are major red flags. Your healthcare provider will ask you some questions like “is your pain get worse in the morning?” or “does the pain normally lower while the day and with use?” These and a few other positive answers to such questions aid your healthcare giver to find if it is really plantar fasciitis or not. (6)
The portion of diagnosing plantar fasciitis is a method of elimination. Most conditions are taken when you tell foot pain: a stress fracture, arthritis, tendonitis, fracture, cyst, or nerve entrapment in the heel. To find out other possible reasons, your healthcare giver might order imaging tests consisting:
- Ultrasound
- X-rays
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Bone scans
Your healthcare provider will do a physical examination to examine for tenderness in the foot and the accurate location of the pain. This is to be sure that the pain does not occur from various foot difficulties. While an evaluation, they might ask you to flex the foot during they go on the plantar fascia to check if the pain gets worse as you flex and gets better as you make your toes pointed. They will also note if you are having mild swelling or redness. Your healthcare provider will check the strength of the muscles and the health of the nerves by examining your:
- Coordination
- Muscle tone
- Reflexes
- Sense of sight and touch
- Balance
- Imaging tests
Imaging tests might also show essential information regarding the tissues and structures within your toes. An MRI scan or an X-ray might be essential to check that nothing else is leading your heel pain like a bone fracture. Therefore, you cannot really have a good look at the soft tissues on an X-ray, the test is useful still for ruling out heel spurs, bone fracture, and other possible culprits. Meanwhile, research recommends that an MRI can give evidence of any thickening of swelling or plantar fascia in the tissues.
An ultrasound might also be essential to check if there are any calcifications, thickening, or other issues. Diagnostic testing is barely an indication for the starting evaluation and treatment of plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis is sometimes known as “heel spurs”, therefore this term is somehow a misnomer because almost 15 to 25 percent of the general public without symptoms have cure spurs, and most symptomatic individuals do not.
Heel spurs are the bony osteophytes that might be seen on the anterior calcaneus on radiography. Therefore, diagnostic testing is shown in cases of atypical plantar fasciitis, in patients who have heel pain that is not accurate for other causes, or in patients who are not showing accurate treatment. However, the diagnosis defines your health condition, so that you can have treatment according to your health condition.