The heel is a very small area and receives a lot of abuse.  Every time you put your foot down, you can injure your heel.  Once the heel tissue gets irritated, it gets inflamed.

You can also get heel pain from the connective tissue attached to your heel being injured.  This can throw things out of alignment, causing pressure to areas that should not be getting that much pressure.

Plantar fasciitis is a very common heel problem.  The fascia is the tissue that covers your muscles.  This connective tissue can get inflamed and cause severe pain when you walk.

This type of pain is usually worse in the morning.  Overnight, when you are not standing, the fascia on the bottom of your foot gets relaxed.  It does not put pressure on the heel bone.  When you get up, you stretch the tissue back out again.  It feels like you are stepping on a tack.

Injuries to the heel from wearing shoes that have a thin sole, no arch support or high heels can easily cause heel pain.  Your foot is not designed to wear high heels.  All the foot bones can get compressed when you wear high heels.  The pressure is put on the ball of the foot and all the tissue in the foot is squeezed into abnormal positions.  This can also cause hammer toes.

Bunions are also a common result of wearing high heel shoes.  The toe gets pushed inward and the body makes a calcification where the pressure is, to protect itself.

The production of bunions is almost inevitable if you hear high heels all the time.  Sometimes they do surgery to shave the bunion and relieve pain.  If you have bunions, you can try the same treatments to relieve pain that you use for heel pain:  Bromelain, magnesium, Boswellin pain relief cream and a complete vitamin formula to address any possible deficiencies.

Plantar Fasciitis is the inflammation of the plantar fascia on the heel.  The inflammation is usually caused by standing too long, wearing non-supportive shoes, or wearing shoes that put your foot at a weird angle.


The key symptoms of Plantar Fasciitis are:

• Pain worse in the morning
• Burning pain in your heels (sometimes)
• Feeling like you are stepping on a tack

The pain is worse in the morning because your feet are relaxed at night and the tissue relaxes.  When you get up, the tissue is stretched back out and you put your bony heel bone down on that inflamed tissue.  The heel bone is pretty small to put your entire body weight on it.

The fascia is the tissue that covers the muscles on your body.  It protects and helps to hold them in.  When the fascia is inflamed, every step is painful.

Taking natural anti-inflammatory herbs and supplements can be effective to relieve this pain.  You will need to take them a while, until all the inflammation is gone.  Once it is irritated, your body will need to not only relieve the pain, but heal the damaged tissue.

The same factors that cause heel pain can cause Achilles tendon pain.  The solution to both is the same.  Natural anti-inflammatory herbs such as ginger root, bromelain, enzymes, glucosamine sulfate and topical pain creams.

1. Wear a night splint - this will relieve the excruciating pain in the morning
2. Take glucosamine sulfate or Joint Advantage Gold to heal joint tissue
3. Bromelain - a natural anti-inflammatory enzyme that speeds healing and relieves pain
4. Wear shoes with good arch support, they will probably not be cute..  Or, you can buy inserts to put in your regular shoes
5. Try wearing good shoes around the house all day, this will keep your foot arch in place and reduce pressure on the heel

Since plantar fasciitis is caused by an inflammation of the connective tissue of the foot, it is important to take natural anti-inflammatories.  My favorite natural anti-inflammatory is bromelain.

It is also helpful to apply topical pain relief creams such as Boswellin cream.  Boswellin cream can be used on any type of pain.  The boswellin herb has been used as a natural anti-inflammatory for thousands of years.  It can quickly relieve pain and inflammation.  I find it especially effective on the feet.


Wearing a night splint is the best option to keep your foot from relaxing over night.  It is the tissue relaxation at night that causes it to hurt so badly in the morning.

You get out of bed and feel like you stepped on a tack.  I used to wear my Ecco shoes to bed and around the house all day.  It was blessed relief.

After my bout with plantar fasciitis, I gave in to the idea of wearing shoes with a thick sole and good arch support.  I usually wear Ecco or Merrell shoes.  I prefer Ecco.  They usually are comfortable from the first time you wear them.  I don’t believe that you are actually “breaking shoes in”, when they hurt.  I think you are breaking your feet in.

It will take several weeks for the inflammation to go away.  Taking natural anti-inflammatories, wearing good shoes all day, even in the house and wearing a night splint are the best things you can do to treat this problem.

  I strongly recommend either wearing your shoes to bed or using a night splint.    To hold your foot in place over night will greatly relieve the pain you feel in the morning.

As you can see, the Achilles tendon can easily be affected by misalignment of the arch of the foot.  It can also be affected by tight muscles on the calf.  If you are deficient in magnesium or other minerals, you are more likely to have tight muscles that affect your joints.

Chronic low level inflammation is a common cause of flare ups up tendonitis.  Even if you do not feel pain, you can have an inflammation that is just waiting to be flared up.  That is why it can be helpful to take natural anti-inflammatory supplements like bromelain or systemic enzymes.

Even ginger root can reduce inflammation.  Ginger root is a natural cox 2 inhibitor.  In other words, it is in the class of herbs that treats inflammation.  You can buy ginger root supplements at any store, even your grocery store will carry them.  Another benefit of ginger root is that it improves your digestion.

Taking internal supplements such as Bromelain and glucosamine are important for any type of connective tissue injury or pain.  Your body needs to heal the inflammation and repair the damage.

Topical products such as Boswellin cream can also be rubbed on the Achilles tendon area.  If you massage the cream in, it will increase the circulation even more.  Massage works by improving circulation and reducing the stagnant fluid in areas that have been injured.

Wearing good quality shoes with a strong arch support will reduce the pain of Achilles tendonitis.  You might consider wearing shoes around the house to protect your foot from trauma as you heal.


 

To treat heel spurs, you need to relieve inflammation and protect the foot from further trauma by wearing shoes with nice thick soles.

It is also important to have shoes with a good arch support.  If your shoes do not have a good, normal arch support, your foot can become unbalanced and the normal arch is thrown off.  Once your arch is off, your foot does not function in a healthy way and you are more likely to have an injury.

You can have bone spurs in your body but no pain from them.  The pain comes from the pressure and inflammation.  Just as you can have back pain with no underlying obvious physical cause, you can have heel pain with no bone spurs.  You can even feel like it is a spur, when none is there.  That comes from the inflammation in the heel.

As we age, our feet have less flesh on them.  This makes foot injury more likely, especially if you do not protect your feet from trauma.

The treatment for bone spurs is the same as any type of inflammation.  Natural anti-inflammatories such as bromelain, topical pain relief cream, such as Boswellin cream.  If your heel hurts worse in the morning than the evening, you might consider plantar fasciitis.

I wore my Ecco shoes around the house all day and my heels did not hurt, when I had plantar fasciitis.  I also wore them to bed sometimes.  I would get up and have little pain in the morning.  They have night splints these days, I would have used one of those if I had known about it.

Taking glucosamine sulfate can help relieve the inflammation that causes the bone spurs.

• Bromelain
• Ginger Root
• Boswellin
• Curcumin
• Glucosamine Sulfate

When you take natural anti-inflammatory herbs or enzymes, they can help your body to relieve inflammation with no side effects.  They have been used for thousands of years to treat pain and illness.

There are several kinds of glucosamine.  The most commonly sold types are glucosamine sulfate and glucosamine HCL.  Glucosamine sulfate is derived from shellfish, glucosamine HCL is synthetically made.

In order to determine which type of glucosamine the product has, you usually have to look at the ingredient list.  Many people take glucosamine and get no benefit.  They do not realize that glucosamine sulfate is the type that has been studied the most and found to be effective for most people.  Everyone is different, but this the common result.

I have found a brand of glucosamine sulfate that combines natural anti inflammatory herbs like boswellin and bromelain.  Also included in the formula are herbs that have been used for arthritis symptoms for centuries.

In my opinion, this herbal formulation is genius. If you buy glucosamine alone, it is about $20 a bottle for a month. If you buy bromelain alone, it is $11 at least at wholesale. Boswellin is another $15 or so, depending on the brand. This formula includes ALL those ingredients in one pill.

I treat pain for a living.  I have tried so many herbs, enzymes and other products to relieve pain. 

One day I was bending over all day packing to move.  My lower back really started to hurt.  Nothing I took was relieving my pain.  I took about 6 tablets of this product and my back pain was completely gone.  I now use it for neck pain, back pain, heel pain, just about any kind of pain that is related to connective tissue.

To take glucosamine sulfate and other natural inflammatory herbs together is better than to just take bromelain.  The glucosamine itself is a natural anti-inflammatory product.  In addition to that, it helps to re-build connective tissue and a common cause of pain is inflammation in the connective tissue.

Here are the ingredients:

Joint Advantage Gold: 4 tablets give you…

Glucosamine Sulfate (from chitin)…1,500 mg—–(this has been used to re-build joint tissue for years, this is the most effective kind of glucosamine)

Boswellia Extract (oleo-gum resin)…616 mg———(natural anti-inflammatory and pain reliever.  It is mentioned in the bible as Frankincense)
(standardized to 65% boswellic acids)

Natural Eggshell Membrane*…500 mg

Bromelain (from pineapple)…400 mg————(one of my favorite pain relievers)

Australian Herbal Blend…260 mg—————–(my comment:  I have never even heard of these herbs and have never found them for sale anywhere.  I believe they are natural anti-inflammatories)
Wild Rosella (calyce), Lemon Myrtle (leaf),
Aniseed Myrtle (leaf), Mountain Pepper (leaf)
European Herbal Blend…216 mg—————————(my comment: these herbs have been used for arthritis and pain for centuries)
Devil’s Claw Extract (root), White Willow Extract
(bark), Yucca Extract (leaf), Feverfew Extract (flower),
Celery Extract (seed), Papaya Extract (fruit)
Bovine Cartilage…100 mg

(White willow is an herb that is used to make natural aspirin.  Willow bark was used for arthritis and inflammation long before aspirin was isolated and sold.)

I always keep this product handy and even take it with me on trips, in case something weird happens and I have pain.

Yes, this is an affiliate link, but I strongly believe in this product and would never endorse something I did not believe in.

The natural remedies used for any type of joint pain can be very helpful to treat ankle pain.

As you can see from this picture, your ankle is mostly made of connective tissue.  When connective tissue becomes irritated or inflamed, it can take a long time to recover because it does not have a very good blood supply.  In order to heal, you need to have circulation.

I would rub Boswellin cream on the foot and ankle.  Boswellin cream is very effective for foot and ankle pain.  The blood circulation is close to the surface, the the pain relief is usually very fast.

In addition to the topical Boswellin cream, I would take glucosamine sulfate and Bromelain.  The glucosamine is going to be a natural anti inflammatory as well as it will heal the damage to the joint and help your body to restore it.

These three items, Boswellin cream, glucosamine and bromelain should be enough to quickly relieve pain and help your body heal the damage.  If that is not enough, systemic enzymes are another option.  Systemic enzymes are used on an empty stomach.

When you take the enzymes, they go into your bloodstream and your body uses them to heal damaged tissue.  Bromelain is an enzyme, it might be enough to heal your pain, but if it not, I would try other enzyme formulations.  If you have a lot of scar tissue from long term inflammation, you might need to take stronger enzymes.

This is ankle swelling:

You can see that the excess fluid can cause pressure on your nerves, causing pain.  If you have any type of accident, your body naturally sends excess fluid in that area to try to heal it.

The natural remedies I have already mentioned will help your body resolve this faster.  If you have chronic ankle swelling, please see your doctor.


 

Enzymes are made by your body to digest your food and to do cellular repair in your body.  If you do not have enough enzymes in your body leftover after you digest all your food, your body can become enzyme deficient.  That means you do not have enough enzymes to clean up injuries and remove inflammation.

Our diets in America, which are heavy on animal protein and other things that are hard to digest, use up a lot of our enzymes to just digest our food.  That means there is not enough left to heal your body.  You can treat this by taking extra enzymes.  You can either get fresh pineapple and eat it or juice it.  Or, you can take Bromelain pills.

The pineapple that is canned has been cooked before canning, so the enzymes are killed.  It is not a source of bromelain.

When you buy bromelain, you want to look at the active units.  Enzymes are measured in active units, not milligrams.  It is easy to buy a supplement that is not as strong as another product and not even know it.  The amount of milligrams does not tell you enough about the strength.  The same number of milligrams can be weaker if the GDU is lower.

Bromelain is typically measured in GDU.  This is the strength of the product.  You could have a higher dose of milligrams, that is less effective because it does not have as many active units.

When you take bromelain on an empty stomach, the enzymes can go into your blood stream and relieve inflammation.  If you take bromelain with food, it will be used partially to digest your food.  It will still help your inflammation a little, but it is stronger to take it when your stomach is not full.

Usually one tablet or capsule of the good brand is enough to treat the problem.  I take the Source Naturals brand of bromelain.  I am very picky about quality.  Here is a link to the product I use on Amazon  Source Naturals – Bromelain 2,000 GDU.  Notice the front of the bottle says 2,000 GDU.  A common dosage is 600 GDU, so the 2,000 GDU in one tablet is very strong.

Once you have injured your heel, it will take some time to heal the inflammation.  If you have had the pain a while, the inflammation can cause scar tissue, so that will add to your healing time.  I think I wore my shoes around the house for about 2 months.

If you are on your feet a lot, you will want to consider wearing ugly shoes.  Nurses do it.  The long term health of your feet is more important than wearing cute shoes.  As long as you are injuring your feet by wearing shoes with no arch support, you are taking the chance the heel will not recover.  It will continually be traumatized and irritated.

You can have custom orthotics made by a podiatrist.  They make inserts that you can put in your shoes that will give you the proper arch support.
Options:

• Buy shoes with good arch support- Skechers is a good brand
• Custom orthotics, a podiatrist can order these for you

I think if you try some  shoes with a good arch support and wear them all the time, while taking the internal supplements, that might be enough.

Night splint

When you have pain, your body is trying to tell you something.  Normally, you are injured and your body naturally heals itself.  If it does not heal itself, then there is something wrong that needs to be addressed.  You especially want to look into addressing nutrient deficiencies if you have chronic pain or pain in several locations in your body.

It is not normal to have pain in several locations.  There is usually a systemic cause to the inflammation.  In my opinion, a magnesium deficiency is a common cause.

However, I had a very strange experience when I had chronic pain.  This was before I started acupuncture school.  I had a chronic wrist pain from typing all day.  My wrists had a burning feeling all day, but were especially bad at night.  In Chinese medicine theory, this symptom of the pain being worse at night indicates that there is “blood stasis”.

The blood stasis is static blood that cannot circulate normally.  The blood just “pools” in that area and circulation is impaired.  As long as you have a lack of circulation, you will have pain.  When you increase circulation, by whatever means, you can relieve pain.


A neurologist I had seen had mentioned CoQ10 to me.  This was in 1995, before the internet was very helpful with these issues.  I decided to try it.  I used CoQ10 100 mg, for a week.  After a week, my wrists no longer hurt.  My wrists had been burning for 6 months and after one week on CoQ10, the wrist pain was gone.

I tell you this because I had no idea that CoQ10 could do that.  You can have nutrient deficiencies that cause your body to not be able to produce all the right hormones and immune factors.  If you can take a good multi vitamin (I like Garden of Life Raw Multi), your body can absorb what it needs and function in a healthy way.

If you have chronic pain, please consider taking a good multi vitamin.  I would take a good multi vitamin, Vitamin C (I like Ester C), Magnesium and CoQ10.  That is the minimum I would do to treat chronic pain.

CoQ10 is called Ubiquinone.  There is a new type of CoQ10 called Ubiquinol.  It is supposedly better absorbed than the regular CoQ10.

The multi-vitamin I take is Garden of Life Raw Vitamins In my experience, you would be better off taking a smaller dosage of really good quality vitamins that your body can absorb, rather than taking a large dose of a cheaper brand. It is not what you take, but what you absorb.