laramie manual therapist

Shin Splints

Bare Physical Therapy Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

shin

 

The most common cause of shin splint pain is excessive (in magnitude or duration) of tension on the tibia by the Posterior Tibialis muscle.  The reason the pain is so extreme is that the Posterior Tibialis muscle fibers blend with the skin of the Tibia which is called the periosteum.  The periosteum has the majority of all sensory nerve endings in the entire bone…so if you are having shin splints, you are having “bone pain” as if the periosteum is tearing…that can be excruciating

shin2

Once you understand the job of the Posterior Tibialis you will understand why it hurts and how to facilitate healing.  When you walk or run the arch on the inside of your foot lowers with shock absorption impact in a motion termed pronation

shin 3

The Posterior Tibialis resists this pronation motion much like a shock on a car. So, the more the foot and leg roll inward in both the magnitude and duration…the more “work” demands are placed on the Posterior Tibialis as it resists this collapse of the inside of your foot.  The more the Posterior Tibialis works, the more it pulls on the periosteum and the more likely you will have shin pain.

Treatment for Posterior Tibial Shin pain.

  1.   Ice will work as an analgesic…it treats the pain, but doesn’t address the pathology.
  2. Heat is also an analgesic…it treats the pain, but it may improve circulation to the injured tissue which can bring nutrients needed for healing.
  3. Anti-inflammatories. They also work as an analgesic and if taken as prescribed will in time reduce inflammation, so once again they do not address the actual pathology.
  4. Reducing the demand on Tibialis Posterior will lead to true healing of the pathology.  Rest can come in several magnitudes…
    1. Reduce pronation… limit wearing shoes that offer little or no support to the inside of your feet and time walking barefoot.
    2. Reduce pronation… limit walking on unstable surfaces like sand or gravel.
    3. Reduce pronation… you can purchase shoes that offer a higher level of motion control and any reputable running shoe store can help you select those.
    4. Reduce pronation… you can add an arch support to further limit pronation. Feel free to come to Bare Necessities for a free gait analysis to give you advice on both shoe and potential arch support prescription…if you don’t live near Laramie, WY…we are still happy to give you free advice if you can send us video of you walking barefoot on a treadmill.  Email to Tony@BarePT.com or send larger files to Anthony.Bare on facebook.
    5. Reduce Impact… decrease minutes of running or walking. Consider non-impact activities like biking and swimming.
    6. Reduce Impact… do your walking or running on a treadmill. A good treadmill provides a level and supportive surface.
    7. Reduce Impact… Reduce running downhill and consider increasing running uphill (once again made easier on a treadmill).
  5. There is no significant role for strengthening for this pathology… Tibialis Posterior is already over worked…more work is not the answer.
  6. There is no significant role for stretching for this pathology… the Tibialis Posterior is as tight as it “needs” to be to do it’s job.
  7. Manual therapy. There is a role for manual therapy to facilitate healing of the Tibialis Posterior and the Tibial periosteum, but if you haven’t addressed #4 above the manual therapy will be much less effective.

While Tibialis Posterior is the most common cause of shin pain, there are other causes and if your symptoms aren’t located on the lower inside of your shin or your pain doesn’t rapidly respond to the treatments suggested above, then it is time to seek medical evaluation.

The Fallacy of Plantar Fasciitis

Bare Physical Therapy bunion, Cortizone Injections, foot pain, Manual Physical Therapy, metatarsalgia, Orthotics, plantar fasciitis, Podiatrist , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_0528.JPG

 

Plantar fasciitis is such a problem that you can hardly conduct an image search for plantar fascia without returning mostly images of the plantar fascia with a big angry red splotch on the plantar fascia near the heel.

I recently watched a video on Facebook posted by one of my Physical Therapy peers on the topic of plantar fasciitis. I privately messaged him to let him know that I thought his presentation had missed some key points and his reply cited the Clinical Practice Guidelines for plantar fasciitis. There are some issues with that response from my standpoint:
1. The Clinical Practice Guidelines for plantar fasciitis are fairly useless in regards to “what to do” to treat plantar fasciitis and of some limited value in “what not to do”. They very accurately reflect current available research which is of little clinical value in this instance.
2. I’m concerned that my profession is so entranced by Evidence Based Practice (EBP) that they have stopped seeking information or guidance outside of what research has generated, and as a result their patients often suffer through suboptimal care and (pun intended) limp down the clinical plank of failed conservative care, injection and ill-advised surgery. I know this not what the developers of EBP-theory intended, but I’ve seen it just about daily on social media.
3. The research available on this topic is doing very little to help clinicians truly heal their patients of their foot pain. I would dearly love to pitch research ideas for anyone who has faculty connections.
Now off the Soap Box and on to clinical guidance…
– Plantar fasciitis is a misnomer, most of these patients don’t use their plantar fascia at all. A more appropriate term would be “Mechanical Heel Pain”. Typically, the origin of Mechanical Heel Pain is a poor initial contact in stance phase in which the contact is too medial in magnitude and/or duration. The medial aspect of the midtarsal joint, subtalar joint and calcaneus are very neural dense and do not tolerate this increased pressure well and eventually leads to heel/foot pain.

IMG_0527.JPG

– Unfortunately, a bad initial contact (as described above), has consequences throughout the foot and lower extremity that further perpetuate an inefficient gait cycle. Here are some examples: hallux abductovalgus (painful bunion), metatarsalgia, achilles tendinitis, medial knee pain (pes anserine, plica, etc), lateral hip pain (trochanteric bursitis, piriformis syndrome, etc) and SI dysfunction.
– The good news is that when you treat the cause (improve foot mechanics) and treat the tissue (manual therapy), the patients’ symptoms resolve very quickly…1-4 visits.
If you are a clinician reading this blog and you didn’t delete it from your feed after reading #2 above,  you have practiced long enough to be frustrated at heel and foot pain patients’ poor prognoses. Please consider attending a lower extremity biomechanical course, it will completely change your practice. I teach a 2 day course called Thinking on Your Feet. Of course, I’m biased and think mine is best, but there are some other good courses out there. Give one of them a chance and it will elevate your practice above the limitations of the current Clinical Practice Guidelines.
If you are a patient reading this blog, you may have had “mainstream” care for your foot pain which probably included: activity modification, exercises (strengthening/stretching), modalities (heat, ice, ultrasound), massage, shoe inserts, dry needling, injections or surgery. You have probably been nodding your head the whole time, because you know your foot pain isn’t completely (or any) better. Find a clinician with biomechanical training in this topic or contact me directly for advice at Tony@BarePT.com or find out more about my unique practice and skill set at Barephysicaltherapy.com

LTC Tony Bare (ret) DPT, ATC, OCS

Laramie, WY

6 Week Follow Up After Cranial Treatment for Non-Sleeping Toddler

Bare Physical Therapy Cranial Therapy, Cranial Therapy for Toddlers , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cranial Therapy Success!

Jill and Mike had their daughter Brooklyn treated 6 weeks ago because she was sleeping so poorly and they were all sleep deprived as a family. You can read their first post HERE

So it has been almost 6 weeks since we had the cranial sacral therapy done by Tony on our daughter Brooklyn (she will be 3 in October), and I have to say life is amazing!  I will admit that for the first week I thought every night was a fluke.  I kept expecting that this treatment would not last and we would be back to the screaming, thrashing wake ups.  That was the life that we had become accustomed to.  But here we are 6 weeks later, with a sleeping toddler.  We have the occasional night where she wakes up because of a storm or a loud noise, but it no longer is the end of our night.  It only takes about 5 minutes to get her back to sleep and she is not inconsolable.  She is also napping at least an hour a day, but more like 2-3 on a regular basis.
Besides the sleep I have to say that we have our daughter back.  Since the sleep deprivation had become such the norm, we did not realize the changes that had occurred in Brooklyn.  Looking back now it is easy to see.  She had terrible tantrums that lasted up to an hour, she became a poor eater and she her personality had disappeared.
Once her sleep improved the rest of the problems seemed to vanish.  Her tantrums still occur, she is almost 3, but they only last a few minutes and we are able to calmly discuss the issue afterwards.  She began eating much better, and has put on healthy weight and above all her personality returned.  The first day we heard her laugh again, we realized that it had been at least 6 months since we heard that infectious laughter.  She is back to her silly, dancing, singing, laughing self.  Brooklyn has also grown leaps and bounds with her confidence.  She will now go and explore on playgrounds without holding our hands and she is not afraid to introduce herself to other kids and initiate play.

6 weeks ago if you had told me that cranial therapy could improve all of these aspects of Brooklyn’s life I would have doubted that was possible.  But now I know and as a family we feel so blessed to have had this session with Tony!
IMG_1661
Mike, Jill and their (sleeping at night!) daughter Brooklyn
Jill is the FIT4MOM Front Range Membership and Special Programs Coordinator as well as the Littleton Stroller Strides and Body Back instructor and running coach. They are expecting baby #2 in September!