Many here have had or have what your describing but it could be something else like PF (Plantar Phascitis) or TS (Tarsal Tunnel). I've 3 surgeries on my feet to help with the pain before I learned it was PN. You can find a podiatrist to help but be careful if they are surgoens they might what to cut and then ask questions. You can have a nerve conduction test as well from a neuro to help narrow it down. Things like activity, your weight can effect heel pain. You can go here and talk with those who suffer with heel pain.
http://heelspurs.com/_safe.html

Good luck

Hi Trishann:

Many years ago, when I got up in the morning, and I placed my foot on the floor, well, I saw stars.

I immediately went to see my podiatrist who took an x-ray and announced "you have a double heel spur", and he showed me the x-ray. There it was.

I said "so what do I do now"? and he said "you get orthotics".

He took a foot mold for the orthotics, and it took a long time to get them.

But they arrived and I wore them each day inside my sneakers.

This was well over 7 years ago. I used to limp everywhere.

Then, and I have no idea if this is related or not", I lost a lot of weight due to a change in my eating habits.

I did NOT need the orthotics anymore. I had no more pain (and I remember the pain, believe me ) so to go from THAT KIND OF PAIN WHEN YOUR HEEL HITS THE FLOOR, to no pain at all, well it was a wonder.

The other day I was at the podriatist and I said "Years ago, I had this horrible heel spur and I had orthotics and well, I don't have the pain anymore, so what happened?"

He simply said "sometimes heel spurs stop bothering you".

I did not get any further x-rays so I don't know if the heel spur is still there.

I do remember at the time, I had to go for 3 ultrasound treatments and an injection in my heel. My doctor sprays some freezing stuff on the heel before the injection. He was great. The injection helped a great deal.

So perhaps if you go to the podiatrist he can take an x-ray and rule out any heel spurs. I have no idea if your heel pain is related to neuropathy, but it's a good idea to rule out anything else.

Best of luck

Melody

Thank you all for the sharing and for the information about heel pain.
We unfortunely had an emergency in our house, the bathrrom, that needed immediately attention. Have not been able to make a doctor appointment because of this issue.

I do have foot insoles for my shoes. Maybe I will start wearing them and not just when I am outside of the house. Hopefully it will calm the heel down, if not, I have to make that appointment then. The house emergency should only take couple more days and should be done hopefully and then I will decide what to do about the foot issue.

I love my slip on shoes when I am in the house , this is going to be a challenge, but if it helps with the pain I will have some relief.

Thanks, Trish

I also am experiencing a bout of plantar fasciitis on my left foot. I've had it for about 4 months. I had it before when I was a young guy wearing "boat" shoes with zero support! I ended up with custom made orthotics and that eventually cleared it up. This time it is back. Coupled with...on the other foot...a nasty case of hammertoe! Both my 1st and 2nd toe are claw like. It is painful and the main joint in each toe is swollen like it is most likely arthritic.
Honest to God....Of course I took my healthy feet for granted as a youngster.It sure would be nice to be pain free for just one day. Miss a dose of Lyrica and the burning comes back. But....like I've said in the past....sitting for long periods also creats shooting pains in the feet. Which....dumps the neuromas that I had taken out of each foot....even though I'm sure there wasn't any neuroma issues in the first place. It just added to my problematic feet. Numbness from the surgery, coupled with the burning that doesn't clearly have a specific cause. Like my neurologist says.....it doesn't matter if the PN is idiopathic, coming from my back, or being one hiccup away from diabetes....it all is still PN.
Yes....the whole thing just sucks! Plain and simple. Bedtime is the only time for relief....I welcome it so.

I think heel pain can be due to several things:

1) heel spurs--- if you have these, you need to wear cushioned shoes and slippers to avoid aggravating them

2) tendonitis of the achillies tendon...this can be painful and due to any pressure from shoes or weird exercises that overstretch the tendon. Some people can even rupture this tendon, and it may follow treatment with fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro, Levaquin or Avelox.

3) Plantar fascitis, as others here have experienced. This can clear up, but it takes time, and you need to examine your shoes and habits so you don't reactivate it.

Some foot pain like this may respond to Salonpas patches.
I use these OTC patches for some of my foot issues.
They work really well for me.

I might add PN too.

I've had a heel spur removed and it was a nightmare! I ended up with a bad case of RLS. Took me 7 years to get it under control.

I had a terrible attack of heel spurs about 15 yrs ago....they were so painful. One podiatrist I went to (who I did not trust) wanted to do the that surgery, but I thought to wait and see if
they would heal themselves...and they did. I am very careful with my shoes now, and have not had a recurrance of pain there. I saw on the x-rays...huge spurs, so I know they are in there!

My PN has never spread past the balls of my feet permanently. (numbness and pain that is). I can get burning all the way up my knees at times, but mostly my PN is confined to my first 3 toes on the right foot and the 2nd and 3rd toe on the left. After I had that crush injury on the big toe of my right foot (the boulder dropping) I have peculiar numbness on parts where the bone was broken. I guess that nerves there were crushed as well as the bone.

I have talked to 100's of folks on heelspurs.com as well as the podiatrist that hangout there and for some reason sometimes when you get one symptom like TS "tarsal tunnel syndrome" in which the tendon is actually pinching on the nerve you get PN that can take years to overcome. One thing makes another flare up. PF causes a bout with PN or vise versa. a bout with PF leads to TS as well. I think in many cases all three of these are really an underlying problem with pn and the doctors haven't made the connection.

Yes, I agree. My feet were terrible when I was so hypothyroid.
They were mostly numb. Low thyroid causes deposition of a form of tissue in the hands and feet...it causes carpal tunnel in the hands, and I expect the same in the feet. When I finally was given thyroid hormone, my feet "woke up"...I had passed from pain to numbness by then. I had tingling and other pains for over 6mos as my feet woke up, and it was almost a year that my feet settled down finally.

Tarsal tunnel can also be constricted by swelling of the feet (many medical conditions can cause this) or inflammation which will also close off the narrow tarsal tunnel.

I just had a thought (with all the talk about Plantar fasciitis), Alan, who has had idiopathic PN for 18 years, well A LONG TIME AGO, he had a nasty case of Plantars warts , from going to a local swimming pool (and this is when he was in his 20's he said).

Could that occurrence have caused his PN? Not one of his doctors has ever made the connection.

Not that we an do anything about this, I'm just curious.

Melody