If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone ask, “I’ve tried everything else, what makes you so different?”, I’d beat Elon Musk to Mars!

It’s such a common statement that I hear every week. So, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of this question and explore why the experienced team at the Foot & Leg Centre are so different, why we focus on what we do and how Foot Mobilisation Therapy may be able to benefit you and your foot pain, where other treatments have failed to produce longer lasting results.

“Cause v Symptoms”

Our difference lies in how we see the make-up of our bodies; how it works and how it’s all connected. It’s a philosophy different to the norm and helps explain why mainstream options commonly recommended for many foot pain problems, are unable to achieve longer term results. To better understand this difference lets first define what I mean by “normal” when it comes to the habits of people seeking help for foot pain.

The Typical Health Care Approach

History has generally shown that society follows a common format when it comes to finding a solution to whatever it is that ails them.

For example, when a person perceives that something is wrong with them (most likely brought about by a symptom or a sign (or suspicion) that something is wrong or feels wrong), the first thing they do is jump on Google and try and diagnose it themselves. Despite all the well-meaning advice, they eventually realise that their foot pain problem is not getting better despite following the suggested tips and remedies, so they go to see a Health Care Practitioner who they think (or hope!) can fix it for them. That well-meaning health professional tries to find out what it is that is wrong and then recommends a course of action to address it. Too often however the recommended treatment is focused on addressing the symptoms to make you feel better.

“Don’t treat the symptom, instead find the underlying cause” ~ Unknown

This approach raises an issue with me because it supports the view that symptoms are bad and an indicator that something is always wrong. As a result of this we now have generations of people who base their level of health on the presence, or absence of symptoms, and practitioners who judge treatment success purely on whether the symptoms that brought the patient in to see them in the first place, have gone.  No (or little) allowance is made for the possibility that symptoms can be a good thing. After all, they are just feedback showing what your body can and cannot currently handle.

Here is a practical example: Exercising does not always feel great even though research has shown (and we all know this) that it can be good for our health and well-being. If we didn’t get the symptoms of pain in our muscles, we wouldn’t know when to stop pushing so hard to therefore avoid straining and tearing our connective tissue – I’d say this is a great time to have some pain! And if we focused on avoiding symptoms, we would never push ourselves to improve through exercising and therefore would never get fitter or stronger.

Solutions are not always found by looking for symptoms and attempting to remedy them.

“Treat the cause not the effect” ~ Edward Bach

So why are we different at the Foot & Leg Centre?

Rather than attempting to get rid of your symptoms at the Foot and Leg Centre, we aim to get to the cause of your problem. Most often the cause of the foot pain problems that we see is the misalignment of the joints within the feet, leading to the continual excessive strain of your connective tissue (muscles, tendons, fascia) causing the inflammatory and pain process you’re feeling now.

Let’s take the common example of osteoarthritis. You’re often told that the arthritis is causing your pain. It’s a well-known fact that osteo-arthritis does not cause pain for everyone, rather it’s the inflammatory process around the arthritic joints that sets it off. If you can restore optimum movement within the joints, this can promote the release of synovial fluid (whose primary task is to lubricate the joints), therefore allowing the osteo-arthritis to live there comfortably without you knowing it’s there.

Another example is heel pain. Which is often blamed on a heel spur. In this instance when we x-ray both feet, the x-ray shows a spur has developed on both heels and not just the sore one…yet only one heel is painful! You see the spur has grown to strengthen the fascia, not injure it or cause you pain. Massaging it, inserting a cortisone injection, rubbing creams into the area, or inserting orthotics can all help as a temporary measure to ease the pain. But this is not fixing the problem for the long term; because if the cause is not corrected the pain will surely and eventually return. This is what makes us so different to other Health Care Practitioner’s – we investigate the underlying cause of foot pain problems, and by addressing the cause we can help your body return to doing what nature intended, which is to keep you performing at your best.

The Road to Recovery

At the Foot and Leg Centre, we go through an extensive and thorough process like most Health Care Practitioner’s. We’ll obtain your past history, we’ll conduct a detailed examination of your feet…and yes we even touch your feet to assess the range and quality of joint motion and the tone of your muscles. If indicated, we also organise diagnostic tests like x-rays; and because most people have foot pain that is worse when they’re weight bearing, we request these x-rays to be specifically taken with you standing. From this we’ll arrive at a diagnosis. For example, plantar heel pain (commonly referred to as plantar fasciitis).

Then we’ll formulate a treatment plan, and here’s the biggest difference between us and other Health Care Practitioner’s. The treatment plan is formulated to correct the cause rather than just reduce or remove the symptom (pain). It may sound harsh, however our utmost concern is to have your feet working at their optimum rather than getting rid of your pain…and YES…of course we want you to feel better and we want it to last long term. If we can restore your foot function, your body’s internal processes will do what nature intended them to do, and this is where the inflammatory process you feel as pain will go and stay away for longer.

We find Foot Mobilisation Techniques (F.M.T.) especially helpful in treating problems of the foot and leg. Foot Mobilisation Therapy is a hands-on manual therapy treatment developed specifically to help foot pain and help strengthen the structure of the foot, thereby taking pressure off the muscles, ligaments and fascia. In addition, our muscle stretching and strengthening program helps you to maintain these changes quite independently for the long term. And once your foot is functioning properly your body’s natural repair processes can heal the heel pain once and for all.

So, if you’re not getting the results you want with your current health care professional or you know that you have just been managing the symptoms of your foot pain problems, then we are here to help. Just reach out and give our Kent Town centre  a call (8239 0800) or our Glenelg centre (8294 0100) a call, for a friendly chat to determine if we are the right place to help you, or you can secure a time online right now by clicking here.

And if you want to know how to choose the right Foot Health Practitioner then check out our blog  “How To Choose A Foot Health Practitioner” here.