3 Ways to Treat Plantar Fasciitis with Essential Oils

Plantar fasciitis is a chronic heel pain. It affects the ligament known as Plantar fascia which acts as a shock absorber supporting the arch of your leg. Excess pressure on the ligaments during movements can cause wear and tear of ligament leading to inflammation and heel pain than can spread to the middle of the foot in some cases.

• Essential Oils
• Research
• Foot Massage
• Foot Soak
• Best Oils
• When to See a Doctor
• Precautions

Damage to the ligament plantar fascia builds up gradually and so does the heel pain. Plantar fasciitis is a common orthopaedic problem of ligament that connects your heel to the front of your foot.

Let us examine how Essential oils can help to alleviate pain caused by plantar fasciitis.

Can Essential Oil Really Treat Plantar Fasciitis?

Before answering the question, let us first understand how plantar fasciitis occurs.

It is an inflammation of the ligament plantar fascia that connects your heel to the toes. When too much pressure is applied to the ligament over a long period of time inflammation called plantar fasciitis occurs. According to a 2018 study essential oils help reduce chronic inflammations.

So, if you are a long distance runner, your job requires standing for a long time on moving around for a long time such as a waiter in restaurant, you are overweight or obese or your feet has structural defects such as very high arch or flat foot then your risk of plantar fasciitis are high.

All these factors increase pressure on the ligament plantar fascia leading to heal pain.

The pain usually doesn't happen during the activity. It generally occurs after the activity is stopped. It also occurs when you wake up in the morning and put your feet for the first time on the ground when you are sitting for a long time and stand up putting pressure on your feet.

Now having understood the broad picture of plantar fasciitis let us now look at how essential oil can help treat the heel pain.

Research

Researchers have begun to study essential oils lately. There are no direct studies done specific on plantar fasciitis. However, many studies including thisstudy show that lavender oil and other essential oil can reduce inflammations. Many essential oils excellent anti inflammatory agents (1).

So if you topically apply essential oils on your heels, reduce your weight if you are overweight or obese and insert heal support in your shoes then you can reduce pain and inflammation.

All these combined efforts order a long period will treat plantar fasciitis gradually.

How to Use Essential Oils for Plantar Fasciitis?

You can use essential oils in the following two different ways to get pain relief.

1. Foot Massage with Essential Oils

You can use any of the essential oil listed below or even use different combinations that you prefer to heal plantar fasciitis pain.

What you need:

• Essential oil
• Carrier oil - coconut oil

How to use:

• Add 3-5 drops of any of the following essential oils in a teaspoon of coconut oil
• Mix well
• Apply on the sole of your feet from the heel to the roots of the toes
• Gently stroke your heel and sole in circular motion to massage the area
• Apply gentle pressure with your thumbs to do deep tissue massage
• Stop deep tissue massage if you feel pain
• Do it for about 15 minutes twice daily.

2. Foot Soak

Foot soak with essential oil and Epsom salt is a double action remedy to get rid of your plantar fasciitis pain

What you need:

• Warm water
• Epsom salt
• Essential oil

How to use:

• Fill ¾ of your foot bath bucket with warm water
• Add a cup of epsom salt and mix to dissolve the salt
• Put five drops of essential oil of your choice from the list below. If you prefer combinations of essential oil do it by all means and experiment to get your best combustion
• Mix well
• Sit on a comfortable chair and soak your feet in the bucket
• Keep it for about 15 minutes
• Do it twice daily

3. Essential Oils

Following 7 essential oils are good for getting rid of pain, swelling and inflammation caused by plantar fasciitis. They have many health benefits but only those relevant to our context here are briefly mentioned.

• Birch – alleviates pain and inflammation and is also antirheumatic
• Black pepper – anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic
• Frankincense – reduces pain, swelling and inflammation
• Geranium – anti-inflammatory, reduces pain and swelling, improves skin condition
• Helichrysum – anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial, soothes pain and relieves swelling
• Lemongrass – reflexes sore muscles, improves blood circulation, helps reduce pain, swelling and is anti-inflammatory
• Wintergreen – reduces inflammation, induces relaxation, fights arthritis, relieves spasms, prevents microbial infections and reduces pain and swelling

When to See a Doctor?

If your foot pain doesn’t respond to any of the essential oil treatments, contact your doctor. Your doctor may also like to rule out any other causes of your foot pain. You might need some x-ray and other tests and additional treatment such as physiotherapy for plantar fasciitis.

Precautions

The following precautions will help to reduce the pain and inflammation of plantar fasciitis.

• Reduce weight if you are obese or overweight. It will not only reduce your heel pain but will also benefit you to become overall healthy. Excess weight can cause many other health conditions.
• Get an insole moulded to suit your feet.
• Stretch your heels
• Massage your foot
• Change your shoes frequently if you are a runner
• Apply an ice pack to reduce inflammation
• Replace high impact sporting activities with swimming which doesn't put pressure on your feet but exercises your body.

Don't allow your plantar fasciitis to increase otherwise steroids and surgery may be required. Both are not good options.

+ 3 References