Kirsty and her foot and ankle pain caused by a ligament strain and then plantar fascia problems.

Kirsty, a 33 year-old teacher, had been suffering with sharp pain on the sole of her left foot when she walked. This primarily occurred in the morning when she first got out of bed but now she began to feel it when she was running. Kirsty had recently entered the Cambridge half-marathon and was keen to keep up with her training schedule.

Our examination of Kirsty’s back and pelvis showed that Kirsty had great spinal rotation which is good in terms of maintaining momentum when she runs. However she was restricted on the right-side of her pelvis and was favouring weight bearing through this leg. We compared Kirsty’s feet. On light pressure, tender-points in the soft-tissue aspect on the sole of her left foot were obvious. We observed that the left sole appeared to face the right foot in that the foot subtly appeared to roll inwards at rest. Gentle examination showed that she had sprained 2 of the 3 ligaments on the outer-side of her ankle.

On further discussion Kirsty remembered she was wearing flat sandals due to the recent good weather and had briefly stumbled but thought nothing of it. We explained that a mild sprain to an ankle doesn’t have to be painful at the time but can affect biomechanics. Her muscles were fatiguing giving her ‘plantar fascia’ pain or muscular pains on the under-side of the foot. It was likely that she was subtly weight bearing through the opposite leg as a consequence encouraging this side of the pelvis to be restricted.

With four sessions we loosened off the muscles of her left-leg and foot as well as freeing up the specific joints which can become locked when spraining the ankle. Her pelvic imbalance was also addressed.

Kirsty followed our neuro-muscular rehabilitation program at home in order to decrease the likelihood of spraining her ankle again.