Causes of heel spur:

• Heel spurs develop as a bone’s response to stress from
• Straining foot muscles and ligaments
• Over-stretching the plantar fascia
• Repeted tearing of the thin membrane, covering the heel bone
• It occurs , when calcium deposits build up on the undersurface of the heel bone, a process that usually occurs over a period of many months.

Risk factors:

• Increasing age, which decrease plantar fascia flexibility and because of thinning of the heel’s protective fat pad
• Diabetes
• Having a flat feet or high arches
• Trauma to heel
• Heel spurs are often seen in athlets, participating in sports involving running and jumping. They are also associated with obesity and osteo-arthitis
• Trauma to heel
• Improper footwear: wearing shoes that don’t fit properly, have lost their support.
• Stone bruises: if you stuck on a hard object such as stone, then you will be have bruice on the fat pad on the undersurface of your heel. It may or may not be discoloured . with rest, pain will go away..

Symptoms

• The vast majority of heel spurs , usually don’t cause pain. In fact, only 5% of people with heel spurs have feet pain.
• Sharp pain like a knife in the heel, when getting up in the morning.
• Dull ache in the heel that remains throughout the rest of the day.
• Point of tenderness at the bottom of the heel that makes it hard to walk barefoot.
• When seen on the x-ray, a heal spur may be upto an half inch long.
• They are also known as a calcaneal spur or osteophytes.
• Calcaneal spurs can be located at the back of the heel( dorsal heel spur) or under the sole( plantar heel spur)
• The dorsal spurs are often associated with Achilles tendinopathy
• While spurs under the sole are associated with plantar fasciitis.
• People often experience more pain during weight-bearing activities or after a period of rest..
• The pain is not as a result of mechanical pressure on the spur, but from inflammatory response.

Treatments:

Rest, ice application, wearing cushioned sports shoes or shoe inserts, and Anti-inflammatory medications are useful. Cortisone injection is also beneficial in most of cases.