Plantar Fasciitis - Diagnosis

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of plantar fasciitis is usually made by clinical examination alone. The clinical examination may include checking the patient’s feet and watching the patient stand and walk. The clinical examination will take under consideration a patient's medical history, physical activity, foot pain symptoms and more. The doctor may decide to use imaging studies like radiographs (X-rays), diagnostic ultrasound and MRI.

An incidental finding associated with this condition is a heel spur, a small bony calcification on the calcaneus heel bone, in which case it is the underlying plantar fasciitis that produces the pain, and not the spur itself. The condition is responsible for the creation of the spur; the plantar fasciitis is not caused by the spur.

Sometimes ball-of-foot pain is mistakenly assumed to be derived from plantar fasciitis. A dull pain or numbness in the metatarsal region of the foot could instead be metatarsalgia, also called capsulitis. Some current studies suggest that plantar fasciitis is not actually inflamed plantar fascia, but merely an inflamed flexor digitorum brevis muscle (FDB) belly. Ultrasound evidence illustrates fluid within the FDB muscle belly, not the plantar fascia.