If your heel announces itself with a sharp stab the moment you get out of bed, you’re describing the most common problem that walks into our Glenview office: plantar fasciitis.
What’s actually happening in there
The plantar fascia is a thick band of connective tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot, from the heel to the ball. It works like a bowstring, supporting your arch and absorbing load with every step — a few hundred tons of cumulative force on an ordinary day.
When that band is overloaded — too much tension, too little support, too fast a change in activity — it develops tiny tears and inflammation where it anchors into the heel bone. Sometimes the body responds by building extra bone at that anchor point, which is the famous “heel spur.” The spur is usually a symptom of the tension, not the cause of the pain.
Watch: how we treat heel pain
Why it happens
Most heel pain doesn’t come from one injury. It builds from mechanics and habit:
- Foot structure. Flat feet and high arches both load the fascia unevenly.
- Tight calves. A tight Achilles chain pulls directly on the heel and fascia.
- Occupation. Jobs that keep you standing on hard floors all day.
- Footwear. Unsupportive shoes, worn-out soles, or a sudden switch to flat shoes.
- Training spikes. New runners, returning athletes, holiday walking marathons.
How we treat it
We start with the gentlest thing that works and only take the next step if your foot tells us we have to. For heel pain, the ladder almost always stops early:
- Start with nothing that breaks the skin. A guided stretching program and custom functional orthotics fix the load problem. MLS laser therapy calms the pain and swelling, and shockwave therapy (EPAT) restarts healing in stubborn cases that have dragged on for months. In the largest placebo-controlled trial, 61% of patients got better after twelve weeks, against 42% on a fake treatment.
- If your foot needs more, one small injection. When the tissue is worn rather than just irritated, regenerative injections calm the inflammation and support real repair, often where cortisone has stopped helping.
- Only if we’ve run out of gentler options, surgery. If a case truly needs it, Dr. Ahn releases the fascia through one opening about the size of a grain of rice, and you walk out the same day. Most patients never get here.
When to come in
Come in if heel pain has lasted more than a couple of weeks, if it’s changing how you walk, or immediately if you notice numbness, tingling, night pain, or pain after an injury. And if you have diabetes, don’t wait — heel pain plus diabetes deserves same-week attention.