Foot & Ankle Treatment for Pain in Anchorage, AK

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Foot & Ankle Treatment for Pain Directory

What causes Ankle Pain?

Over a million Americans a year go to the doctor with ankle pain. There are many causes of ankle pain, including:

• Several different diseases (e.g., arthritis)
• Injury (e.g., from tripping, twisting, rolling an ankle etc.)
• Certain sports and activities that involve sudden changes in direction, jumping, or side-to-side movements (e.g., skiing and skating)
• Postural and joint mechanics issues that cause wear-and-tear of the ankle
• Inappropriate footwear (wearing heals, unstable or loose-fitting clogs or sandals, unevenly worn down heals)
• Lifestyle factors like weight and age. 

Some of the most common conditions that cause ankle pain include:

• Ankle sprains
• Fractures 
• Achilles Tendonitis 
• Achilles Bursitis (inflammation of bursa) 
• Arthritis (cartilage in joints becomes irritated and swells, overtime this can eventually lead to bone-on-bone rubbing)
• Gout (excess uric acid in the body can create crystals that settle in joints causing pain, particularly the first toe)

Peripheral Arterial Disease (blood vessels narrow restricting blood supply in the lower leg, causing pain) 

Other factors that can lead to ankle pain include:

• High arches (Pes Cavus) – the underside of your foot forms an arch, if too high this can sometimes cause pain
• Flat foot (Pes Planus) – very low foot arches can cause pain and swelling around the ankle
• Infection – most common is cellulitis (a deep infection of the skin)  
• Referred pain from another area of the body e.g., sciatica 
• Previous ankle injury
• Chronic ankle instability

Treatment can range between medications, physical therapy, bracing and immobilization, rest, steroid injections, orthotic inserts, or surgery – depending on the severity of your condition or injury. There is one key aspect of almost all painful ankle conditions that can underly why pain and stiffness after injury can be either slow to heal or why it doesn’t fully resolve: that is, problems with your fascia. With the exception of certain types of arthritis, skin and bone infections, gout, and tumors addressing the specific fascia problems of your condition is an effective standalone treatment.

Ankle pain is actually often caused by injury and dysfunction to different types of fascia. This by itself can lead to the development of many common ankle conditions (tendonitis, bursitis, arthritis) or the reoccurrence of sprains and strains. Click here, if you want to find out how fascia problems can slow recovery and make you more prone to further ankle injury. 

A common reason why some people are more prone to recurring ankle injury and ankle arthritis is because of problems in the alignment of their ankle and body. A key driving factor of this misalignment that you may not have heard about is dysfunctional fascia spasm, which can be happening in your ankle, knee, feet, back, and hip. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can both weaken the ankle and gradually cause wear-and-tear. Treating fascia dysfunction removes these mechanical stresses and restores circulation, reducing the chance of another sprain and also helps improve your recovery time. 

Click here to find out how getting fascia dysfunction treated with Fascial Counterstrain therapy can help you: 

• Speed up your recovery time
• Resolve chronic ankle pain
• Prevent the recurrence of ankle conditions
• Slow down the development of degenerative ankle conditions

What causes Foot Pain?

1 in 5 of us experiences foot pain. This is due in part to the heavy burden feet must bear throughout our lives. Feet are also quite complex! Within the foot there are 26 bones, 33 joints, plus nerves, muscles, tendons, ligaments, veins, arteries, cartilage, and soft tissue structures. Disease or injury to any of these can cause foot pain. Of the many causes of foot pain, common causes include:

• Several different diseases
• Postural and joint mechanics issues that cause wear-and-tear problems
• Foot deformities (e.g., hammertoe)
• Referred pain
• Injury
• Inappropriate footwear (wearing heels, shoes that are too narrow)
• Certain sports and activities

Foot pain treatment will depend on the cause of the pain, and often involves one or more of the following: immobilization, medication, standard physical therapy (strengthening & stretching), and surgery. These treatments focus on helping your foot heal, reducing pain, and regaining foot functionality, however with the exception of surgery, none of these tend to directly treat injury and dysfunction of specific nerves, veins, and arteries. Instead, it’s hoped that the standard treatments will help these structures heal by themselves. Unfortunately, even if you’ve had surgery, these parts may still require further treatment.

There is one key aspect of almost all painful foot conditions that can underly why pain and stiffness after injury can be either slow to heal or why it doesn’t fully resolve: that is, problems with your fascia. Again, with the exception of certain types of arthritis, skin and bone infections, gout, and tumors addressing the specific fascia problems of your condition can be an effective standalone treatment.

Many common, painful foot conditions can be helped by correcting the fascia dysfunctions that are a part of that condition. Addressing these helps you more fully recover and speed up recovery. Conditions that fascia treatment can substantially help with include:

• Achilles surgery – post op recovery
• Bone spurs
• Ankle & foot fractures & breaks
• Bunions
• Bursitis (inflammation of a bursa)
• Haglund’s deformity (bony bump that appears on the back of your heel bone)
• Metatarsalgia (pain in the ball of your foot)
• Morton’s neuroma (Pinched nerve causes pain in the ball of your foot)
• Osteoarthritis (cartilage in joints becomes irritated and swells and overtime can deteriorate)
• Peripheral neuropathy (weakness, numbness and pain often in the hands & feet)
• Plantar fasciitis / fasciosis
• Referred pain (pain in the ankle or foot, caused by a problem not in the ankle or foot)
• Stress fractures
• Tarsal tunnel syndrome (ankle pain from a compressed nerve)
• Tendonitis e.g., Achilles tendonitis 

In fact, depending on certain considerations, treating fascia can also help with the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune inflammatory joint disease), certain foot deformities (hammertoe and mallet toe), flat feet, corns, and calluses.

Many types of foot pain are actually often resolved by getting treatment for the different types of fascia problems in the foot and around your body. Without proper fascia treatment, you can become more susceptible to developing a particular foot condition, to find out more about this click here. 

A common reason why some people are more prone to foot injury is because of problems in the alignment of their body. A key driving factor of bad alignment that you may not have heard about is dysfunctional fascia spasm in your foot, ankle, knee, back, and hips. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can weaken the foot and gradually cause wear-and-tear. Treating fascia dysfunction removes these mechanical stresses and restores circulation, reducing pain and the chance of further foot injury, and helps improve your recovery time. 

Click here to find out how addressing your fascia’s dysfunctional spasming with Fascial Counterstrain therapy can help you: 

• Speed up your recovery time
• Resolve chronic foot pain
• Prevent the recurrence of foot conditions
• Slow down the development of degenerative foot conditions

Ankle Sprain

When the ligaments in the ankle are overstretched or torn, by rolling twisting, or turning your ankle, you can get an ankle sprain. Ligaments are tough fibrous bands that hold your bones together. Sprains can be described by how severe they are, a grade 1 sprain refers to a sprain with little to no ligament tearing, grade 2 is a partial tear, whereas a grade 3 sprain is one where the whole ligament has torn apart. 

A US study showed that 70% of people who get an ankle sprain develop some residual physical disability – including chronic ankle instability. This instability is one of the reasons why you are 3.5 times more likely to sprain your ankle after a previous sprain. And there is now mounting evidence that you are also more prone to osteoarthritis in the same joint ^[1]! Given this reoccurrence of ankle sprains, it appears that standard treatments like rest, medication, inserts, steroid injections, bracing, physical therapy, and surgery don’t always appear to address the fundamental problem. People who are hypermobile maybe more susceptible to ankle re-injury, however this does not explain the large numbers of repeat ankle sprains. What is the fundamental issue that makes the ankle joint more prone to further damage after it has “healed”? 

Fascia problems are a common reason why some people:

• Develop an ankle condition (tendonitis, bursitis, arthritis) 
• Are more prone to chronic ankle instability
• Have recurring ankle sprains and ankle arthritis

This is because long-term fascia problems can cause difficulties in the alignment of your ankle and body. A key driving factor of this misalignment that you may not have heard about is dysfunctional fascia spasm, which can be happening in your ankle, knee, feet, back, and hip. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can both weaken the ankle and gradually cause wear-and-tear. Treating fascia dysfunction removes these abnormal mechanical stresses, brings you back into alignment, and restores circulation. These all help reduce the chance of another sprain and help improve your recovery time. 

Click here to find out how you can speed up your recovery time, resolve chronic ankle pain, and prevent ankle sprains from happening again when your fascia gets the right help with a treatment called Fascial Counterstrain therapy.

Foot and Ankle Fractures

Foot and ankle fractures can occur because of trauma, overuse (e.g., sports or marching) and osteoporosis (a condition in which a loss of bone density weakens bone strength, increasing the risk of fracture). Some of the common types of fractures include: 

• Stress fractures – small cracks in your bone
• Oblique, spiral or transverse fractures (these describe a single fracture and its relative orientation to your bone)
• Avulsion fracture (tendons and ligaments are fibrous strong tissues that attach into bones, sometimes instead of tearing they will rip out a small chunk of bone where they were attached)
• Compound fracture (when the bone breaks through the skin)
• Comminuted fractures (bone shattered into 3 or more pieces)
• Greenstick fracture (this is a partial fracture that doesn’t break across the whole bone)
• Compression fracture (the bone is crushed and shortened)
• Segmental fracture (there is a floating segment of bone between two breaks)
• Impacted fracture (where the two ends of a bone break are jammed together)

Your risk of your ankle or foot fracturing and the amount of force required to fracture them depends on:

• The presence of pre-existing conditions (e.g., osteoporosis) 
• Whether there are abnormal stresses within or across your foot or ankle (caused by postural and alignment problems across the ankle and body)
• The amount and types of activity you participate in

Depending on the severity or complexity of your fracture(s), your treatment might involve rest, a walking boot or brace, crutches, cast, reduction of weight-bearing activities, anti-inflammatories and surgery. The length of your recovery and how long your rehabilitation will take in part depends on the severity of your injury. Normally, most people can resume regular activities within 3-6 months, although recovery time for patients with stress fractures can be shorter (6-8 weeks), or longer if the fracturing is more severe. 

After your fracture has healed, a key factor that you may not have heard as to why your recovery can be slow or why pain and stiffness remain is your fascia. After an ankle or foot fracture, the internal fascia of your bones and the fascia of the surrounding soft tissues can all become injured. Fascia normally heals; however, sometimes the injured fascia doesn’t heal on its own and becomes dysfunctional, and can significantly slow down recovery and even cause chronic pain.

Click here, if you want to find out more about how treating your fascia, that can’t fully heal by itself, can help speed up your recovery time and resolve chronic foot and ankle fracture pain.

Ankle Stress Fractures

Ankle stress fractures are small cracks in your ankle bones that occur after your muscles get overly tired and can no longer absorb the stresses of repeated impacts (e.g., walking, running and jumping). These stresses are then transferred into your bones which can lead to stress fractures. If you have an ankle stress fracture you may get swelling and feel the pain gradually increasing during weight-bearing activity, this pain will decrease once you stop these activities.

Your ankle is made up of three bones – two bones of your lower leg, the tibia (shin bone) and fibula make up the top part of the ankle, and the lower part is your talus bone (one of your foot bones). Your risk of stress fractures and the amount of force required to fracture one of your ankle bones depends on:

• The presence of pre-existing conditions (e.g., osteoporosis) 
• Whether there are abnormal stresses within your ankle (caused by postural and alignment problems across the ankle and body).
• The amount and types of activity you participate in

Treatment for ankle stress fractures can include rest, a walking boot or brace, crutches, reduction of weight-bearing activities, anti-inflammatories and sometimes surgery. Recovery times are typically 6-8 weeks. Fracture treatment usually focuses on recovery not prevention. This makes sense as most types of fractures are caused by one-off, unrepeatable events. However, ankle stress fractures in particular can reoccur because the conditions that caused them are more likely to be recreated, e.g., walking, or running.

Fascia problems are a common reason why some people are more prone to recurring ankle stress fractures. This is because fascia dysfunction can cause problems in the alignment of your ankle and body, which cause abnormal stresses in your ankle. A key driving factor of this misalignment that you may not have heard about is dysfunctional fascia spasm in your foot, ankle, knee, back, and hip. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can both weaken the ankle and make it susceptible to stress fractures. Treating fascia dysfunction removes these abnormal mechanical stresses and restores circulation, reducing the chance of stress fractures recurrence and also helps improve your recovery time. 

Click here, if you want to find out more about how correctly addressing your body’s fascia problems can help speed up your recovery time, prevent stress fracture recurrence, and resolve chronic or hard-to-treat pain caused by ankle stress fractures.

Foot Stress Fractures

Foot stress fractures tend to occur in your metatarsal bones. You have 5 metatarsal bones, one for every toe, with each located at the start of a toe and extends along and ends about half way up the foot. Your metatarsals are more prone to stress fractures than other foot bones because these are relatively long and slender. As we mentioned, above, stress fractures are tiny cracks in your bones that form because of repetitive weight-bearing activities (like running, marching, and jumping) that overuse and exhaust foot muscles. This leads to excess stresses being transferred into your foot bones which can cause stress fracture formation. Again, pre-existing conditions, the amount and type of activity, and the pre-existence of abnormal stresses in the foot (caused by alignment and postural issues), can all affect the likelihood of stress fractures in your metatarsals.

Treatment for metatarsal stress fractures can include rest, a walking boot, crutches, reduction of weight-bearing activities, anti-inflammatories and sometimes surgery. Recovery times are typically 6-8 weeks. Metatarsal stress fractures can reoccur because the activities and conditions that led to them are so easily recreated (walking, running, etc.).

Fascia problems are often the reason why some people are more susceptible to recurring metatarsal stress fractures or why pain is still present after 6-8 weeks of rest and therapy. Fascia dysfunction can cause problems in the alignment and position of your foot and body, this can cause abnormal stresses in your foot. The main driving factor of this misalignment that you may not have heard about is dysfunctional fascia spasm in your foot, ankle, knee, back, and hip. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can both weaken the foot and make it susceptible to stress fractures. Treating fascia dysfunction removes these abnormal mechanical stresses and restores circulation, helping the healing process.

Click here, if you want to find out more about how correctly addressing your body’s fascia problems can help your recovery time, prevent stress fracture recurrence, and help hard to treat pain go away for good. 

Achilles tendon injury

Your Achilles tendon, located at the back of your heel, connects your calf muscles to your heel bone. Through repeated overuse it can become damaged by multiple microscopic tears forming in the tendon. This condition is called Achilles tendonitis. Achilles tendonitis produces inflammation and pain. Treatment for this includes rest, physical therapy, certain medical procedures (e.g., injections), and more rarely, surgery. Achilles tendonitis is often brought on by sudden increases in certain activities like running, playing sports (e.g., basketball or tennis), or active weekend warriors.

If after a few weeks the body isn’t able to completely repair all this micro-tear damage in your Achilles tendon, your Achilles tendonitis can become an Achilles tendinopathy, where the tendon is progressively weakened by this damage and starts to break down. Tendonitis and tendinopathy are often used interchangeably and the symptoms can be similar or the same. If you have Achilles tendinopathy you are more likely to get an Achilles tendon rupture or tear since the tendon is weakened. 

Achilles ruptures can occur because of forceful jumping and twisting, or abrupt acceleration from running. These actions can overstretch the tendon and lead to a rupture. An Achilles tendon rupture can either be a partial tear or a complete tear. Depending on the severity, it can:

• Stop you from standing on your toes
• Prevent you from walking properly because you can’t point your foot 
• Cause pain and swelling around the heel and tendon

Why do some people suffer from Achilles injury and others not? Not all people who suddenly increase their activity (e.g., sports or running) get Achilles tendonitis, tendinopathy or an Achilles rupture, so what makes the difference? Excess weight, repeated steroid injections (3+) into the Achilles tendon, and taking certain antibiotics can all increase the risk of Achilles tendon rupture. 

However, you may not have heard of a key factor that very often is the main driver for why tendonitis and tendinopathy develops, reoccurs, or why the Achilles tendon ruptures. This key common factor is your body’s long-term fascia spasm problems. Fascia spasm problems in your knee, ankle, back, hip and feet are relevant because they can prevent correct movement of those joints, which can cause excessive abnormal stresses in the heel making you more prone to tendonitis, tendinopathy, or a rupture. These Stresses caused by fascia dysfunction can slow down or even prevent a full recovery from an Achilles injury or operation. 

Treatment for an Achilles tendon rupture can include rest, crutches, a brace, medication, surgery, and physical therapy. Normally, those who have had an Achilles tendon surgery can expect recovery times that can vary between 4-6 months although it can sometimes take up to a year for full recovery. However, if you are experiencing slower recovery times or unusual pain and swelling, this can be because your fascia dysfunctions haven’t been properly treated and corrected. Properly addressing your fascia with Fascial Counterstrain therapy can improve the local long-term blood supply and also remove the abnormal stresses in your Achilles tendon that can slow down recovery. 

Click here, if you want to find out how treating your fascia dysfunctions can help you: 

• Reduce post-op recovery times 
• Reduce the chance of Achilles injury recurrence (from tendonitis, tendinopathy, or Achilles tendon rupture)

Plantar Fasciitis and Fasciosis 

Plantar fasciitis is simply inflammation of your plantar fascia, and is the most common cause of heel pain. Your plantar fascia is a thick band of strong tissue that supports your foot. It runs along the bottom of your foot, connecting your heel to your toes. Plantar fasciitis can be caused by either a one-off event, like a fall or jump from a height, or by repeated straining and overuse (e.g., running, over training). Plantar fasciitis occurs because these events and activities over-stretch and strain the plantar fascia and induce multiple tiny microscopic tears in it, which causes inflammation. 

The inflammation is produced in order to try and heal the plantar fascia. Unfortunately, this is where you can get stuck in a constant cycle of damage and only partial repair, with your plantar fascia unable to fully heal quickly enough before the next straining event occurs.

Factors that make you more prone to plantar fasciitis include:

• Mis-alignment of your foot structures or flat feet

• High arches 
• Issues higher up in the body (e.g., back, hip, ankle and knee tightness or pain) can increase strain into the plantar fascia
• Activities that repeatedly stress your plantar fascia, like running or repeated jumping
• Wearing shoes with inadequate support
• Carrying excess weight
• Having a job where you’re on your feet all day

The normal reaction to pain in the sole of the foot is often to see if it will just go away with rest. Unfortunately this often allows the plantar fasciitis to progress into plantar fasciosis. Plantar fasciosis is a condition whereby inflammation and repetitive strain cause your plantar fascia to weaken over time. Weakened plantar fascia can then be strained and re-inflamed even more easily, creating a chronic situation of debilitating heel pain that can last months to years.

Treatment for plantar fasciitis and fasciosis includes physical therapy, rest, medication, steroid injections, orthotics (shoe inserts), medication, and night splints (you wear a splint that stretches the calf muscles while you sleep). Recovery can take several months and depends on the severity of your condition and whether there are any underlying conditions that are additionally stressing the plantar fascia.

Ironically, an often overlooked, but very common cause of plantar fasciitis that you may not be aware of are problems in the fascia of not just your foot, but also in your ankle, knee, hip, and back. Fascia isn’t just restricted to the underside of your foot: it’s everywhere. In fact, there is another kind of fascia problem that you may not have heard of – that is, fascia dysfunction.

Fascia dysfunction can cause problems in the alignment and position of your foot and body which can cause abnormal stresses in your plantar fascia. The main driving factor of this misalignment is dysfunctional fascia spasm in your foot, ankle, knee, back, and hip. Dysfunctional fascia spasm can cause long-term abnormal stresses that can both weaken the foot and make it susceptible to plantar fasciitis and fasciosis. Properly addressing your fascia with Fascial Counterstrain therapy can improve the local long-term blood supply and also remove the abnormal stresses in your plantar fascia that can slow down recovery. 

Click here, if you want to find out more about how correctly addressing your body’s fascia problems can help end your chronic foot pain, improve recovery times, and keep plantar fasciitis and fasciosis  from coming back.

Fascia injury and dysfunction – your most common, yet least talked-about cause of ankle & foot pain

Whether it’s an underlying cause of a condition or what stops you from fully recovering after treatment, fascia plays a pivotal role in the conditions that cause foot and ankle pain. Fascia is central to your ability to sense pain. This is because most nerve endings that transmit pain are housed in your body’s fascia, so the pain that you feel from any injury, condition, or disease is actually coming from the fascia of that affected tissue or body part. 

Fascia coats all of our anatomy from head to toe; it interconnects across all parts of the body (skin through to the center of our bones). Fascia is effectively a key part of your body’s ability to sense and protect itself, and responds with pain, spasm, and inflammation when a particular area is threatened or harmed.

Fascia interconnects across and pervades through all parts of the body and coats all of our anatomy from head to toe (skin through to the center of our bones, including nerves, veins, arteries, muscles, discs, and more). Fascia plays a key role in your body’s ability to sense and protect itself. It responds with pain, spasm, and inflammation when a particular area is threatened or damaged. 

Fascia plays a central role in protecting and healing the body from injury. It’s actually the nerve endings in your fascia that are responsible for sending the “all clear, good to go!” message to your body after injury.  Until they send this message, your body keeps the muscles and fascia guarding the injury tight. This is in part achieved by the “pain-spasm-pain” cycle. This is where pain causes both a protective spasm in your muscles and fascia, and produces inflammation – which itself can lead to yet more pain. This creates a self-re-enforcing protective feedback loop that produces inflammation, spasm, and pain until your injury or condition has fully healed. 

This feedback loop becomes dysfunctional when inflammation gets “stuck” in the injured fascia – this fascia dysfunction prevents the “all clear” signal from being given to the body. This then creates long-term fascia dysfunction that can last for years. These long-term dysfunctional fascia spasms can exist before your foot or ankle injury, but the injury itself can cause yet more to form. Dysfunctional fascial spasms can prevent correct movement of any joint because they hijack your muscles, causing a torquing stress in the ankle and foot. Over time, this kind of stress makes the area more prone to overuse, degenerative changes, injury and its recurrence, and it can slow down or sometimes prevent recovery. 

This is further compounded because spasming fascia and muscles reduce circulation into and out of the affected area, which slows down the healing process. On top of that, there are fascia dysfunctions in other areas of your body that can increase stress felt by your ankle and foot. These fascia dysfunctions misalign other parts of the body; for example, fascia dysfunctions in your spine, torso, hips, feet, knees, and even your jaw and around your face and head can increase abnormal stresses into your foot and ankle.

This ability that fascia has to hijack muscles into protectively tightening for the long-term can’t be consciously overridden; thus, your body will naturally use back, hip, knee and foot muscles differently in daily activities to avoid stressing your injured fascia. These changes in muscle use can cause increased force and pain in your ankle and foot joints, which with time or overuse frequently lead to many common ankle and foot conditions and chronic pain (e.g., Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis) – without the need for a traumatic injury-causing event.

For example, there are multiple fascia dysfunctions that can cause your body to use your glute muscles less, which forces you to use your calf and foot muscles more. Many people suffer from glute muscle inhibition – a technical term for when a muscle is turned off by your nervous system, weakening it in certain positions. 

This very common problem of glute muscle inhibition can prevent you from fully turning (rotating) your leg and from fully moving your leg backwards (extending). Hence you might feel hip tightness or see differences in how well you can move one hip vs the other. The shortfall in glute strength and hip movement means when you walk or run, your calf and foot muscles have to work harder. This in turn increases stress in these muscles, and with overuse they can get over-tired, increasing abnormal stresses into your calf and foot joints and bones. With time, this can lead to many of the most common ankle and foot conditions developing, reoccurring, or not fully resolving.

It turns out that fascia dysfunction isn’t just caused by injury; it can also be caused by surgery, postural issues, overuse, infection, or can result from inflammation caused by food allergies or an inflammatory diet.

A wide variety of fascia dysfunctions (e.g., fascia dysfunction of a vein, artery, nerve, bone, cartilage, and more) can cause and contribute to a specific ankle and foot condition. Normally it takes multiple long-term fascia dysfunctions in the knee, back, hip, ankle or foot to cause a painful ankle or foot condition to develop. Thus, in order to resolve foot and ankle pain, you may need a therapist with the ability to address all the different types of fascia dysfunctions (in veins, bones, nerves, and more), wherever they may be in the body. Interestingly, Fascial Counterstrain therapy is one of only a handful of treatments that can actually achieve this.

While the full role of fascia in injury and pain is becoming more widely known, many in the medical and therapeutic fields are still unaware of its significance or how to specifically address it when it is dysfunctional. 

How Does Fascial Counterstrain Therapy Resolve Painful Ankle and Foot Conditions?

Fascial Counterstrain therapy resolves painful foot and ankle conditions (even when they are chronic) because it is designed to fix the fascia dysfunctions that can cause them. Fascia dysfunctions are a result of a faulty long-term pain-spasm-pain cycle, [up to section above] that can prevent your condition from fully resolving. 

Fascial Counterstrain therapy targets the associated “stuck” inflammation and chronic spasm of a fascia dysfunction by resolving its chemical and neurologic causes. This dual-targeted approach helps you rapidly resolve many common ankle and foot conditions, even those that haven’t responded well to standard treatments or that have become chronic. Fascial Counterstrain therapy treatment allows the body to return back to a more properly-functioning, “factory settings,” painless state.

Fascial Counterstrain therapy can treat fascia dysfunction in any type of fascia (nerve, arterial, vein, and more) in any part of the body (knee, back, hips, feet, etc.) – which allows it to resolve many of the hard-to-find causes of foot and ankle pain.

The way Fascial Counterstrain therapy works is that it releases your body’s fascial tissue using precise and gentle positioning that is guided by the presence of specific painful Tender Points.

Fascia coats all of our anatomy from head to toe; it interconnects across all parts of the body (skin through to the center of our bones). Fascia is effectively a key part of your body’s ability to sense and protect itself, and responds with pain, spasm, and inflammation when a particular area is threatened or harmed.

Tender Points are small diagnostic points that, when painful, indicate the presence of a fascia spasm in a certain fascia tissue in a specific part of the body. Tender Points are similar to Trigger Points, but unlike Trigger Points that are located only in muscles, Tender Points can be located anywhere across the body. 

This simple and gentle solution can have profound effects for anybody with a condition or injury, even those with complex physical problems.

Four main benefits of Fascial Counterstrain Therapy: 

1) Pain reduction and elimination as “stuck” inflammation is effectively released.

2) Preserve your joints and reduce wear and tear by resolving improper joint stresses by releasing fascia spasm.

3) Help prevent injury recurrence.

4) Slow down, stop, and even sometimes reverse degeneration of affected tissue by improving circulation of blood and lymphatic fluid (lymphatic fluid is key to your immune system and helps the healing process).

All of these together give your body the healing and recovery tools to achieve optimal long-term healing and health.

Contact us to find out more about how Fascial Counterstrain therapy works and how it can help you recover from your ankle or foot problem.

Conditions Treated with Fascial Counterstrain Therapy

Fascial Counterstrain (FCS) therapy is a class-leading, hands-on method for the identification, assessment, and correction of one of the most common sources of pain and dysfunction in the body. It can help resolve chronic pain & inflammation, improve post-surgical outcomes, reduce healing times, reduce wear and tear across joints, & improve tissue health. Fascial Counterstrain therapy can substantially help many conditions, here is a list of a few, if you don’t see your condition ring us to find out if we can help.