Pain-Relieving Treatment Options for Heel Bursitis

Let Our Long Island Foot Doctors Help Resolve Your Bursitis Related Heel Pain

Bursae are fluid-filled sacs under your skin located in and around your body’s joints. They help to cushion and lubricate the tendons, muscles, skin, and bones around them. They allow you to move freely and without friction. Unfortunately, sometimes these sacs become inflamed and swollen, leading to a condition called bursitis. One of these bursae is located behind your heel bone. At Massapequa Podiatry Associates, our heel pain professionals provide a customized treatment plan to help you recover from heel bursitis and resume regular physical activities without discomfort.

Symptoms of Heel Bursitis

Not everyone with bursitis experiences the same symptoms, but some of the most common signs you might notice are:

• Swelling
• Difficulty walking or bearing weight on your foot
• Trouble standing on tip-toe
• Tenderness to the touch
• Redness
• Warmth
• A lump on the back of the heel
• Crackling sound upon flexing the heel
• Difficulty wearing shoes

Conditions Sometimes Confused with Heel Bursitis

Even if you do have some of the symptoms above, it’s essential to have an accurate diagnosis of the root cause of your heel pain. For example, because bursae are located near joints, patients sometimes relate inflamed soft tissues to joint pain, so they think they’ve developed arthritis instead of bursitis. 

Additionally, bursitis is sometimes confused with Achilles tendinopathy because bursae and tendons are near each other, and symptoms are similar. 

Causes of Heel Bursitis

Several factors contribute to developing bursitis. Our podiatry professionals do a thorough intake of your whole health profile to understand various issues and what heel pain treatment approach is best for you. Here are just a few aspects we evaluate. 

• Medical conditions such as: 
  • Arthritis—rheumatoid, psoriatic, or ankylosing spondylitis
  • Diabetes
  • Gout
  • Kidney disease
  • Thyroid disease
• Acute injuries like a hard hit to the back of the heel
• Repetitive stress, which may be caused by:
  • Not properly stretching before exercise
  • A lot of running, jumping, and/or walking
  • Suddenly increasing your levels of physical activity
• Irregular foot shape, which may result from Haglund deformity
• Improperly fitted shoes or styles of footwear that place a lot of pressure on the bursa, such as high heels or tight running shoes
• Insect bites, scratches, or puncture wounds near the bursa that break the skin
• Poor posture

Heel Bursitis in Runners

These active individuals are at particularly high risk for developing bursitis, especially if they:

• Overtrain
• Run on a treadmill, which will alter their gait
• Increase their running distance too quickly
• Don’t warm up enough
• Run uphill a lot
• Wearing running shoes that are too tight
• Have a higher-than-ideal body weight

Without proper rest between intense activity, runners who push themselves after the initial onset of bursitis symptoms may experience more serious injuries, such as a ruptured Achilles tendon, which could require surgery.

Heel Bursitis Treatments 

Most of our patients recover from bursitis in only a few weeks when properly diagnosed and assigned a treatment option specific to their needs. Keep in mind: failing to treat bursitis can result in it becoming a chronic condition. Depending on the severity of your heel bursitis pain, we may encourage conventional, non-invasive treatment options first. 

Rest

Listen to your body. Take a break, particularly from activities that result in a lot of rubbing or pressure on the bursa. You should rest for a minimum of 48 hours. Taking more breaks during your workouts is also helpful.

Ice

Applying an ice pack to your heel for 20 minutes at a time, several times per day, helps relieve pain and inflammation. Always wrap the ice in a towel to protect your skin from tissue damage.

Elevation

Raising your foot above your heart whenever possible shifts blood flow from the affected bursa. This helps reduce swelling and lessen pain.

Change How You Train

Choosing low-impact exercises like bicycling or swimming—in place of activities that are hard on your feet and ankles—allows you to stay fit while giving your feet and ankles a much-needed break. Gradually increasing the duration and intensity of your workouts also gives your body time to adjust and prevent future injuries. 

Change Your Terrain

Runners and power walkers may find relief on softer or flatter surfaces. If you’re on your feet a lot for work, try anti-fatigue mats on concrete or other hard flooring to provide extra cushion.

Adjust Footwear

You may need to make your current shoes better suit your feet with heel wedges, custom orthotics, or padding in the area around the bursa. We might also recommend that you try different shoes with lower heels or that aren’t as tight around your ankles.

Medication

Bursitis can be treated with over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications, joint and muscle creams, steroid injections, and antibiotics to clear up infections.

In other cases of heel bursitis, it might be necessary to combine treatment approaches to achieve more effective relief. At Massapequa Podiatry Associates, here are some of the more advanced services and therapies we provide that aid recovery. 

Release the Fluid

If your heel pain isn’t subsiding and the bursa is still swollen, our doctors might aspirate it. This procedure uses a needle to remove extra fluid from the sac and, if necessary, check for infection.

Regenerative Medicine

Our offices offer several safe, FDA-approved, cutting-edge treatment options that enhance your body’s natural ability to heal itself. These regenerative medicine treatments for heel bursitis include:

• Extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT). This is a non-invasive, state-of-the-art intervention that requires minimal recovery time and has only minor side effects, which could include mild pain, tingling, and bruising for a day or two after treatment. It uses high-energy sound waves to:
  • Increase blood flow to the injury
  • Accelerate tissue repair
  • Breakup calcium that has built up around the injured area
  • Relieve pain by temporarily blocking pain receptors
• Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. Platelets are cells that help repair damaged blood vessels. During PRP therapy, we draw your blood and extract platelets from it, which we then inject into an injured area to stimulate healing. This method can be used in soft tissues, whether the injury is the result of chronic pain or acute trauma, and helps reduce pain. 

Surgery

Bursitis surgery is typically only necessary in rare cases to address conditions that don’t respond to more conservative treatments after 6–12 months. Our doctors will always explore less invasive options first and try to prevent you from needing surgery.

When You Should Contact Massapequa Podiatry Associates for Heel Pain

Call our office right away to schedule an appointment if: 

• You’ve tried to care for your heel pain at home, but it’s not going away.
• The pain continues even after you rest.
• Your symptoms could be Achilles tendonitis.
• You have numbness, fever, or tingling.
• You have other medical conditions.
• Your foot won’t bend downward, or you cannot stand on your toes.
• You’re in too much pain to perform your usual daily activities. 

Our Long Island Heel Pain Experts Can Help

Don’t try to just wait it out or learn to live with it without talking to us first, because that could cause a temporary condition to become permanent. Our doctors ensure a timely and accurate diagnosis by: 

• Discussing your medical history, what may have led to the pain, and when it seems to be at its worst.
• Performing a blood test to assess other medical conditions.
• Examining your feet for swelling and to determine the location of the pain.
• Utilizing diagnostic tools such as MRIs and X-rays.
• Looking at your shoes to determine if they could be part of the problem and if they should be modified or replaced.

Our experienced podiatrists have a 95 percent success rate in treating heel pain using customized plans suited to your unique needs. The sooner we see you, the easier it will be for us to help.