will ultrasound treatment help heel pain?

one common problem is pain on the heel, aka plantar fasciitis, where the plantar fascia (that's the broadcloth like support that holds up your arch and tendons) inserts to the heel bone.

photo source http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00149

Usually you treat it with NSAIDS (eg advil/alleve/aspirin) and stretching, also shoe inserts to keep the arch from falling. Some people say to use splints, but I could never get people to actually keep using them.

photolink here.

Now they suggest ultrasound might help those with this nasty painful but not serious cause of heel pain.

I used to give a lot of cortisone shots for this (on "the res" where I worked, to get ultrasound treatment took making a request via the tribal health board, since we didn't have the machine...and since this treatment was not urgent, often it didn't get funded).

usually I warned the patient that the shot was very painful: enough to make strong men cry.

And they agreed with me.

But usually it did help the pain