A heel spur is an outgrowth from the heel bone caused by calcium deposits that have accumulated in response to stress on the heel. It results in a bony protusion under the heel bone and pointing towards the toes.
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In some cases, this protusion can be as much as half an inch long. Heel spur symptoms can include heel pain in some cases, but they are painless in many others. Treatment of heel spurs can include stretching exercises, footwear changes, taping and other measures.Heel spurs tend to occur together with plantar fasciitis, although they can also occur on their own. These spurs are also sometimes called calcaneal spurs or plantar spurs.
They are essentially calcium deposits that have accumulated under the heel bone. This doesn't happen overnight but can instead take many months to occur. The accumulation can have any of a number of underlying causes:
These underlying causes tend to be especially common among athletes in sports that require extensive running and jumping.
The factors that increase the risk of developing heel spurs include:
Individuals who are diabetic, have flat feet or who spend most of their day standing on their feet are also at higher risk of developing heel spurs.
In many cases, individuals with heel spurs do not experience any symptoms. However, for other affected individuals, heel spurs can cause pain that can be either chronic or occasional. The pain is usually a result of inflammation that forms at the point of the spur. Hence, technically speaking the pain is not a direct result of the heel spur but of the secondary injuries it has created.
When pain becomes a factor, activities like walking or running tend to exacerbate it. As with plantar fasciitis, the pain is also sometimes worse when taking the first few steps of the day or after standing up from a long period of sitting.
If a doctor diagnoses a heel spur, treatment may include the following:
If these conservative treatments do not work, doctors may suggest corticosteroid injections to relieve the inflammation that is causing the pain.
Surgery will usualy be considered as a final resort after the other approaches have failed. The goal of surgery would be to either release the plantar fascia or remove the plantar spur. However, surgery to treat a heel spur comes with a number of complications such as nerve pain, permanent numbness in the heel area and scarring, to name a few. So the patient should be careful to go over all pros and cons with his/her doctor before going ahead with the surgery.
Individuals who wish to reduce the risk of developing calcaneal spurs can do so by taking the following precautions:
