Any one with heel pain

[bridger]

I was just wondering if any of you have had any type of severe heel pain. My 8 year son just started the other day with severe heel pain and I am not sure what to think about this.

Please let me know if you have ever experienced this.

Thanks,

Kathy(Seth's mom)Astrocytoma spinal cord

[ScrapHeap]

Hi Kathy,

I do not want to be an alarmist or suggest my reply indicates your 8 year old's situation. But I will share my experiences in reply to your question.

Both of my tumors were located in the thoracic region. The worse one was inside the spinal cord, attached to the inner cord wall. The other was quite small in comparison, located below the first, and attached to the outside of the cord. The lesser would have gone unnoticed if I were not being operated on for the other.

My symptoms began up to 4 years prior to my diagnosis. The first symptom I can recall was obnoxious pain in my feet. It was limited to just the bottoms of my feet. The pains would increasingly flare up the longer I put weight on the feet. Pain was bad but worse around the bottoms of the heels when it was more persistent. Meaning, it wasn't always a constant pain. At times it wasn't there at all. I could best describe the overall pains as if the bottoms of my feet were badly bone bruised. As time passed the bruised feelings were accompanied w/a burning sensation. But that took 2 years or longer.

I thought maybe I was in need of a foot doctor for the longest time. But I just sucked it up and tried to ignore and overcome the discomfort - a bad habit of mine from my earlier days playing sports. There is a thin line between being stubborn and stupid. The two should never be mixed. But I clearly crossed that line on more than one occasion.

For up to 3 to 4 years I had two developing tumors that went completely undetected. Maybe longer. That's just a guess based on when I began having symptoms (severe pains on the bottoms of my feet). It was no fault of my doctors. I had cat scans, x-rays and mri's galore. I had neurological tests as well. They just didn't show up until later and progressed rather quickly just before and immediately after that time frame.

Keep tabs on how your son is doing. Include a qualified doctor to do so. It is worth the piece of mind to know. If by chance it is something in development, chances are much better it will be discovered in its earlier stages. Which increases the chances of a good recovery. On the other hand, don't jump to conclusions either. It's easy to do sometimes.

Please keep us posted on the progress. I will think pure thoughts and hope it turns out to be nothing more than "growing pains" (a strong possibility, especially if he is tall for his age).

-Mike

[John]

Mine heel pain was Plantar Fasciitis.

I had a custom made orthotic (arch support) made and was 100% cured.

[bridger]

Thank you very much Mike for your reply, very well written.

Seth is not tall for his age and he has orthotics in already from his PT. This just started with him and one day it is really bad and he says it feels like a bruised bone and then the next day he is fine, then bad, then fine, etc. So I am not really sure what to think, of course mom always worries it is tumor but how can you not with everything he has been through. His opposite thigh hurt real bad and his rib cage on the same day his heel hurt.

The problem with us is that his pediatrician is two hours away and his neuro guy is 12 hours away. We are in Montana and his neuro guy is in Seattle so I have to try and figure a lot of symptoms out before jumping in the car.

Seth was 4 when they finally diagnosed his tumor which took them 9 long months to tell us that he had this tumor, they thought he was constipated. I don't think my husband or I have really recovered from this ordeal so when Seth has symptoms, I tend to over react but he really does not complain.

I appreciate your time in responding back to me. What this gives me is a little more info that maybe this could be tumor related and not to ignore his symptoms. Hopefully your right in that it is growing pains because it is common in this age group to bruise your heel but how do you differentiate the two.

Thanks again,


Kathy

[chickiet]

Hi Kathy,

I think that the key in your situation would be to keep a log of his symptoms - any and all (or none). Continued monitoring will help to see if the heel pain goes away and stays away vs. comes back on a continual basis. A bruise or other injury to the heel could certainly cause a bit of pain - but it shouldn't go away and then return somewhat later.

Once you've logged his symptoms and feel sufficiently armed with info, then you can weigh when to make appointments. I think the logging of his symptoms will go a long way with the docs - you can say when things started and/or stopped and have cold hard facts in front of you. You can certainly cite others on this website's symptoms as examples as well - while everyone is different, if you know of others in our community who've had similar experiences it wouldn't hurt to pass them along.

Best of luck - and keep us posted!
Chris

[bridger]

Thank you Chris for your reply. That really makes sense in keeping a journal of his symptoms, I never thought of that. He will see his PT today and I will bring her up to date.

Thanks again for the reply. It really helps when people reply back with different suggestions.

Kathy

[janos]

Hi Kathy,
Yes, I have heel pain with my tumour. If it's any help, i've a few ways of describing it, that maybe could/hopefully would not be how your son is experiencing his. It's like someone digging into the heel very hard with the knuckle of their hand. The pain moves around, comes and goes. But as with a lot of foot pain, you experience it less when you are on your feet, as the pressure on them by standing counters the internal pain. So, for me anyway, i can ease the pain by walking about. Over the counter drugs don't do anything to ease this pain for me. i experience the pain most when i'm in bed at night.
Hope this is of some help. Jan

[badtazz]

Kathy, my pain is also associated to my arachnoiditis. It is basically scar tissue in the middle layer of my spinal cord. It causes me to have pain in many different parts of my body. Mostly in the feet for me. I kept a journal of my pain in the begining, the doctor read it and that was when we did an MRI and found the arachnoiditis and that the tumor was growing back. Alot of things can happen when they go inside your spinal cord and have to mess with your nerves. All my best to you and Seth and your husband. I fully understand the panick whenever he has a new symptom. He sounds like a real trooper. By the way, I live 100 miles from Seattle, just off I-90 in a little town called Ellensburg. My Neuro is in Tacoma, WA. The one I tried in Seattle had some inept staff. My wife and I go to Seattle often to help care for her grandparents, and to pick up our Granddaughter. Take Care, sorry for rambling.