Posterior muscle tightness of the knee and genu valgum sometimes occur in some patients with plantar fasciitis, causing the patient to feel anterior knee pain. Keep reading to learn more about knee pain with plantar fasciitis
Does heal pain develop knee pain?
In addition to foot pain, some people may develop knee pain secondary to plantar fasciitis. The common reason for this is that if you have had plantar fasciitis for an extended period of time. You may have changed the way you walk and this is what we call a compensatory mechanism. So you might try to avoid loading as this may help with plantar fasciitis symptoms when walking, but this can create an abnormal gait pattern.
So gait is just a medical term to refer to the way we move the way we walk. This means if you start in an unnatural way of walking that your body is not used to, it may put abnormal or unfamiliar pressure on other parts of the body, and thus you may develop secondary knee pain.
ًWith a clinical assessment this is fairly common, so when I see people with chronic plantar fasciitis and talk about how it’s affecting their lives, it’s not unusual for a patient to tell me that they’ve also started noticing pain elsewhere.
But there is an anatomical link in and of itself between the two, so most people with plantar fasciitis won’t necessarily have knee pain. Also if a person has knee pain, there are a lot of other problems.
Some people may have osteoarthritis of the knee, which is an entirely separate condition and is not related to plantar fasciitis at all.
So in short, you can develop knee pain in association with plantar fasciitis yes, but heal pain in isolation does not cause knee pain.
What is the main relationship between knee pain and plantar fasciitis?
1- Genu valgum of knee
Plantar fasciitis may potentially have genu valgum as a contributing factor. Calcaneal inversion, pronation beneath the heel, and increased plantar fascia tension are ways that genu valgum is countered.
2- Hamstring tightness
Because most of the population may experience knee pain over the course of their lives, familiarity with the diagnosis and risk factors for heal pain is important for both primary care and specialist practitioners. Posterior muscle strain is an important intrinsic risk factor that has been associated with knee pain with plantar fasciitis.
Posterior muscle tightness of the lower extremity was present in some patients with plantar fasciitis.
When the hamstrings are tight, they pull the back of the shin bone toward the butt. This effectively flexes the knee. So walking or running on a constantly bent knee places excessive loads on the patella. Also it leads to anterior knee pain.
The results of some studies indicate that therapists who will use a stretching protocol to treat plantar fasciitis notice tightness in their hamstrings as well as their triceps.
Treatment
Dr. Kyrillos Mina, founder of the Fitoont Telemedicine platform, says that “Stretching programs for plantar fasciitis are good and effective. If the reason is tightness of hamstring, focus on stretching the triceps and hamstrings for tissue-appropriate plantar fasciitis stretching”.
