Therapy

After making the difficult diagnosis, the adequate treatment of a fatigue fracture of the heel follows. This consists primarily of absolute protection and relief. A longer period without sport is just as important and necessary as sufficient rest periods in everyday life.

At no time should you run excessively long and a lot, as the smallest bone injuries that have led to the fatigue fracture need rest and time. This can become a real challenge, especially for ambitious athletes. Nevertheless, one should follow these tips in order to be able to be painlessly active again in the future.

Those who cannot or do not like to do without sports at all should switch to gentle sports without direct stress on the heel. Swimming or aqua gymnastics are good options here. Furthermore, the patient should learn to listen to his body.

Pain is always a signal that the performance limit of one’s own body has been reached and a break is necessary. The treatment can be supported by the dosed use of painkillers. For this purpose, “classics” such as ibuprofen or ASS are suitable.

Of course, this should not be a permanent solution, but only reduce the pressure of suffering in the first phase. On the other hand, it is absolutely irresponsible to take painkillers, but still to do without the training break. Serious health problems can be the result!

At regular intervals a doctor should assess the progress of the healing process. He can give the “green light” to start training again after an appropriate period of time and work out a realistic training plan together with the patient to get back into training. If a now healed patient starts again too ambitiously and ambitiously after a longer break, there is the threat of another fatigue break or other overstrain-related sports injury.

Duration

A fatigue fracture of the heel is an extremely protracted injury – in two senses: On the one hand, it usually takes a very long time to “work up” a fatigue fracture. The body and especially the skeleton of the bone are resistant and loads as well as shorter overloads are tolerated in most cases. Even though the individual sensitivity and susceptibility to injury is of course crucial, it can be said that no one has suffered an immediate fatigue fracture of the heel after just one unaccustomed activity.

Until this happens, the overloads must have occurred constantly over a very long period of time and without regeneration phases. The healing of a fatigue fracture of the heel is also extremely long and often very difficult, especially for the patients affected. The healing process requires a great deal of discipline and even more patience.

Even with consistent relief, it can take weeks to months before a final healing can be spoken of. Even after that, affected patients must continue to practice patience and start very slowly. However, “ignoring” the fatigue fracture of the heel, i.e. dragging it along and simply continuing to train, is not an alternative: In these cases, the fatigue fracture or its chronic remnants in combination with the accompanying pain often remain a lifelong companion.