Plantar fasciitis is inflammation of your plantar fascia, a thick band of tissue that connects your heel bone to your toes on the bottom of your foot. It’s one of the most common causes of stabbing heel pain, especially in those who:

• are runners
• are pregnant
• have diabetes
• are overweight
• have tight Achilles tendon
• spend long duration on their feet
• are flat-footed or have high arches
• wear shoes with inadequate support

What causes the heel of plantar fasciitis are small tears as the result of excessive tension.

Aging creates a greater risk for this cause of pain in the heel. As you age, your fascia becomes less elastic, so it doesn’t stretch as readily. Thus, after age 40 some activities that were previously performed without pain may now cause you heel pain on that first step in the morning.

The pain caused by plantar fasciitis typically develops gradually and often only affects one heel. Also, because you may change the way you walk to compensate for your plantar fasciitis, you could initiate foot, knee, hip or back problems. So, you’ll need to treat it ASAP.

Initial treatment for pain in your heel caused by plantar fasciitis includes:

• if overweight, lose it
• don’t wear high heels
• replace worn out fitness footwear
• regularly perform heel stretching exercises
• if you stand or walk on hard floors, pad them
• stop fitness running or walking until pain eases up
• only wear shoes with good arch support & shock absorbency
• insert inexpensive arch supports to take tension off & help absorb shock
• apply ice for at least 15 minutes three times daily, especially after fitness activity
• take OTC pain relievers & anti-inflammatory ~ aspirin, acetaminophen, naproxen, ibuprofen

You may need to treat plantar fasciitis for several months before your heel gets better.

If pain fails to subside, your health care provider may suggest:

• wearing orthodics
• using night splints
• cortisone injections
• wearing a cast boot
• putting on a short leg cast

In rare cases, surgery may be necessary to release a tight inflamed fascia.

And bone spurs in your heel do not cause this heel pain.

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A pinched nerve is also referred to as nerve compression, entrapment or impingement. And a prime example is when your foot “falls asleep.”

Very often, a pinched nerve is caused by excessive pressure on a nerve by surrounding bone, cartilage, muscle, tendon or inflammation. Whenever the pressure is enough to cause nerve signal disruption you’ll likely experience pain plus some of these symptoms:

• tingling
• stiffness
• twitching
• numbness
• paresthesia
• muscle atrophy
• muscle weakness
• sharp, shooting pain

Where you feel pain symptoms of a pinched nerve isn’t necessarily the location of interruption. And if your pinched nerve arises out of your spinal cord, then coughing or sneezing may aggravate its pain.

Pinched nerves are most common where a nerve travels through a small space, like with:

• carpal tunnel syndrome ~ wrist
• thoracic outlet syndrome ~ between neck base & armpit
• piriformis syndrome ~ sciatic nerve pinched by piriformis muscle, herniated disk

A number of conditions may cause a nerve or nerves to pinch, for instance:

• injury
• obesity
• bone spurs
• poor posture
• osteoarthritis
• herniated disc
• spinal stenosis
• repetitive stress
• inflammation around nerve caused by injury, bruise, etc.

Pinched nerves can sometimes lead to other conditions, i.e peripheral neuropathy and tennis elbow.

If the extent of your pinched nerve pain is short lived, then typically it’ll cause no permanent damage. However, if the pressure on your nerve is chronic, then permanent nerve damage may occur.

Initial treatment for a pinched nerve is rest, as in refrain from any activity that causes pain aggravation. Often, this is the only treatment necessary so long as you feel pinching relief within a few days.

Otherwise, another form of treatment may be required:

• surgery ~ last resort
• brace ~ for immobilization
• corticosteroids ~ helps alleviate pain
• NSAIDs ~ ibuprofen, naproxen for swelling
• cortisone injections ~ minimizes pain & inflammation

Frequently, a pinched nerve might be avoided if you:

• maintain good posture
• limit repetitive movement
• use proper body mechanics
• include strength & flexibility within fitness regime

And keeping your weight within a fit range is important as well.

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Achilles tendon injuries typically happen to sedentary and out of condition older adults. The primary symptom of Achilles tendinitis is heel pain that is frequently slow to develop. Other symptoms may include:

• tendon stiffness
• skin over tendon warm
• Achilles tendon tenderness
• swelling or bump on tendon
• dull pain when pushing off your foot
• crackling sound when tendon is moved

Your heel pain of Achilles tendonitis may improve a bit when initially moving about, and then it is likely to worsen as you increase your activity.

Couple of the major causes of this type of tendonitis are:

• improper footwear
• movement on inappropriate surfaces
• sudden increase in fitness regime level
• repetitive activity involving Achilles tendon
• actions that place a lot of stress on calf muscles & Achilles tendon

Some other fitness related, or otherwise, situations that can cause Achilles tendinitis are:

• arthritis
• overuse
• jumping
• tibia vara
• overweight
• overpronation
• poor conditioning
• weak calf muscles
• stairs, hills climbing
• tight Achilles tendon
• flat or abnormally high arches
• inward angulation of heel or forefoot
• wearing high heels all the time ~ shortens Achilles tendon

In some heel pain cases, the inflammation of your Achilles tendon may be caused by trauma or an infection near the tendon.

If treated promptly, heel pain of Achilles tendinitis can be alleviated quickly. Left untreated, Achilles tendinitis could cause chronic heel pain or your tendon to rupture. And an Achilles tendon rupture needs surgery to repair.

Ordinarily, the treatment for easing and healing your Achilles heel pain and inflammation symptoms is rest and NSAIDs, such as aspirin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen. With substantial swelling, add ice message, compression bandages and elevation to your treatment protocol.

Rest as in limiting any activity that causes your symptoms to worsen. This means avoiding any forceful and repetitive plantar flexion, but you can continue to lightly use and stretch your tendon.

If your attempts to improve your heel pain symptoms fails, then there are other measures, like:

• casting
• bracing
• crutches
• physical therapy
• foot insert that elevates heel
• walking boot that keeps heel from moving
• heel pads, cups to worn in shoes to cushion, support heel

If all else fails, there’s always surgery to remove your inflamed tissue from around the tendon. Cortisone injections are not advisable because they can weaken your tendon.

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When your muscle is tight, its tone is abnormally rigid, which hampers fluid movement. So, due to excessive tonus, your muscles are in a continuous shortened state.

Tight hamstrings is one of the most common complaints involving muscle tightness. When your hamstrings are tight, then you’re more prone to hamstring muscle tears. And tight hamstrings can also cause lower back pain because their tightness pulls your pelvis out of its proper position.

Muscle tightness may be caused by:

• stress
• overuse
• scar tissue
• inflexibility
• repetitive motion
• muscle weakness
• muscle imbalance
• not enough stretching
• postural stress, bad posture
• inadequate neuromuscular efficiency

Other causes for your muscles to be tight may involve certain health related situations, such as:

• polymysitis
• fibromyalgia
• osteoarthritis
• hypothyroidism
• rheumatoid arthritis
• genetics ~ born with naturally shorter muscles
• puberty growth spurt ~ bones grow more rapidly than muscle
• lower back problems ~ puts pressure on sciatic nerve causing muscles to tighten
• spasticity ~ CNS disorder marked by a high degree of muscle tightness, or hypertonia

Some drug side effects can cause tight muscles, like:

• botox
• modafinil ~ for narcolepsy
• acitretin ~  severe psoriasis
• interferon beta-1a ~ multiple sclerosis
• estrogen ~ hormone replacement therapy

One of the best ways for loosening tight muscles is having a sports massage. Just be sure your chosen masseuse is familiar with hypertonocity because there are specific ways a tight muscle should be worked to loosen it up.

Couple other ways to loosen tight muscles is (no bounce) stretching, strengthening and heat. Heat is not only comforting, but it assists in pliability for a looser feeling muscle.

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Physical exertion can provoke asthma type symptoms that last for several minutes. Other activators of asthma are allergies, pet dander or respiratory infections.

Exercise induced asthma is caused by inflammation of your bronchial tubes. Its symptoms resemble those of allergic asthma, including:

• fatigue
• dyspnea
• coughing
• wheezing
• chest tightness

Your asthma symptoms may occur 10-15 minutes into your aerobic exercise or after you’ve finished. For some, their asthmatic onset may not happen for hours afterwards.

The benefits of exercise are too important to forgo a regular fitness program. What’s necessary is to chose an activity that is less likely to provoke symptoms.

Exercise induced asthma is typically more prevalent while engaged in cold-weather aerobic activities, like:

• skiing
• ice hockey
• ice skating
• cross-country skiing

It’s best not to participate in any other sport that involves continuous vigorous outdoor exertion as well, such as running or bicycling.

Swimming is one of the recommended aerobic exercises if you have exercise induced asthma. Also, participating in fitness regimes that are made up of short aerobic exertion periods intermingled with rest works well too, like tennis, golf and baseball.

Factors that can contribute or worsen exercise-induced asthma symptoms consist of:

• GERD
• dry air
• obesity
• air pollution
• high pollen count
• cold temperatures
• poor physical shape
• respiratory infections ~ common cold, bronchitis
• chemicals ~ chlorine, paint, fertilizers, herbicides

Those with asthma are more likely to suffer exercise induced asthma. And exercise induced hives and anaphylaxis are completely unrelated conditions.

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Not only does the volume of air you breath substantially increase, but you’ll breath in deeper and that air won’t pass through your pollutant trapping nose. Larger particles tend to get caught up in the mucous of your nose, mouth and throat. The nose being the most efficient at ensnaring them.

Course your lungs’ mucous and cilia participate in keeping the crap out as well. Yet, less is best when it comes to air pollution’s impact on your lungs.

Exercise is all about oxygen delivery. You get that oxygen from the air. But, sometimes you also get noxious pollutants right along with it. More specifically, unhealthy levels of ozone, carbon monoxide, airborne particles, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide or lead.

When you exercise in polluted air, you’ll draw air in deeper and increase your lungs’ contact with these pollutants. This foreign matter causes inflammation and lung lining cell damage. Not only will your lung function be reduced on the spot, but studies indicate repetitive incidences may lead to cancer, scarring and permanent reduction in lung function.

You can minimize your deep lung exposure to air pollution by checking the level of pollutants in your area. And then don’t engage in deep lung inhaling exercises when it’s unhealthy or above.

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For many, exercises hives occur after exercise on particularly hot, humid or cold days. And it can lead to exercise-induced anaphylaxis, albeit rarely.

Exercise hives are a form of physical urticaria. Physical urticaria may be caused by sunlight, heat, cold, water, pressure and vibration as well.

Other allergy symptoms that may accompany your exercise hives include:

• priuritis
• flushing
• headache
• swollen tongue
• stomach cramps
• difficulty breathing
• hand, facial swelling

You should always stop exercising immediately if you experience hives.

Eating certain foods before you exercise may contribute to fitness induced urticaria outbreak. So, you may want to avoid exercising for several hours after you eat.

Certain antihistamines can prevent symptoms sometimes. And avoiding certain exercises may prove to be helpful.

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The demanding fitness activities that typically cause exercise induced headaches are running, rowing, tennis, swimming and weightlifting. After exercise headaches typically strike those with a familial history of migraines.

Exercise headaches that aren’t connected to a health condition are considered harmless. The primary symptom for benign exertion headaches tend to be throbbing on both sides of your head. And they’re more likely to happen in hot, humid weather or high altitude exercise settings.

It’s generally believed that the cause of inducing a throbbing head is the muscles of the head and neck need more blood when you exert yourself. This causes the blood vessels to dilate and swell inside your skull resulting in an exertion created headache.

Exercise headaches can also be caused by various health conditions, some of which can be serious. These headaches may provide a clue for such issues as:

• brain tumor
• heart disease
• sinus infection
• brain hemorrhage
• cerebrospinal fluid obstruction
• brain serving blood vessel abnormality

Aside from a lingering headache, secondary exercise headaches may be accompanied by:

• double vision
• nausea & vomiting

After exercise headache related symptoms that warrants immediate medical attention are:

• vision disturbances
• numbness & tingling
• progressively worsens
• weakness on one side
• episodes begin after age of 50
• sudden, explosive onset upon exertion

Exertional headaches that are not instigated by some other condition respond well to standard headache treatment. Try taking your chosen medication an hour or two ahead of commencing your fitness regime.

Tenacious after exercise headaches respond well to indomethacin, an anti-inflammatory requiring a prescription, and propranolol, commonly used to treat hypertension, tremors or chest pain.

You should always have your exercise induced headaches evaluated by your doctor to ensure their cause isn’t a vascular or grey matter problem.

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For starters, exercise delays or prevents disease and helps you maintain a healthy weight. And you’ll live longer and feel better if you stay active. So yeah, regular exercise definitely plays an important role in staying healthy. And here’s a couple reasons why.

Exercise, or physical activity, improves the efficiency of your cardiovascular system. This means oxygen and nutrient delivery, along with waste removal, via your blood, is happening readily.

Therefore, the bad junk doesn’t hang around too long to do harm and the good stuff is on hand to meet organ demands for smooth functioning.  Translates to more nutritious energy to fight disease.

Regular exercise has many staying healthy benefits, some of which are:

• strengthens bones
• enhances circulation
• increases endurance
• lowers blood pressure
• boosts the use of oxygen
• maintaining joint function
• builds energy levels so you can do more
• strengthens your heart & cardiovascular system
• improves muscle tone, strength, balance & joint flexibility

Exercise not only improves health and builds endurance, but it may also reduce your risk for many conditions associated with aging, or otherwise, such as:

• stroke
• obesity
• diabetes
• dementia
• arthralgia
• weakness
• heart attack
• osteoporosis
• back problems
• high blood pressure
• coronary heart disease
• some cancers ~ prostate, breast, colon, ovarian

Exercise assists the disease fighting white blood cells to move out of the organs and into the bloodstream. This is especially beneficial for fighting a cold, influenza and other infections.

Exercising causes the production of endorphins. This chemical is the one that causes those peaceful and happy feelings. Exercise can help with mild depression, low self-esteem, stress and anxiety.  And you’ll likely sleep deeper.

One way exercise aides in weight loss is it builds muscle. Muscle uses more calories than fat, thus it increases your metabolism and you lose weight.

Another weight loss benefit exercise provides is you’ll burn more energy than you would if you remain sedentary. Therefore, if you consume relatively the same number of calories, then the extra energy usage renders you with a loss in weight.

Tend to moving so you’ll never be denied the benefits of exercise!

To achieve some of these staying healthy benefits, you need to get 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week. But don’t go out there and overexert yourself. Especially if you suffer from exercise intolerance.

Always give your body some rest time, lest you want to end up with a muscle strain or stress fracture. Or even low blood counts and an iron deficiency.

Another cautionary tidbit is exercising in unhealthy air quality makes your lungs vulnerable to health damage. Air pollutants can involve ozone, carbon monoxide, fine particles, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide or lead. So know your local air status before you breathe in poisonous air deep into your lungs.

From a global perspective, staying healthy depends on you giving support to your disease fighting immune system via consuming a healthy diet, exercising regularly, snatching sufficient rest and curtailing stress.

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Lactic acid is a by product of anaerobic glycolysis. Glycolysis is a metabolic process that converts stored muscle glycogen into glucose for energy. Whenever this breakdown takes place in an environment with little or no oxygen, then lactic acid has the potential to buildup.

The most common cause for lactic acid to build up is during intense or prolonged exercise. However, accumulation of lactic acid can be caused by other health related situations and conditions as well, such as:

• shock
• sepsis
• alcohol
• hypoxia
• seizures
• ischemia
• liver failure
• lung disease
• kidney failure
• liver problems
• hypoglycemia
• severe anemia
• respiratory failure
• metabolic diseases
• severe dehydration
• out of control diabetes
• congestive heart failure
• carbon monoxide poisoning
• cancer ~ leukemia, lymphoma
• severe infection ~ HIV, malaria, cholera

A standout of lactic acidosis concern is an adverse affect from metformin, frequently prescribed for Type 2 diabetes and PCOS. Albeit, it’s rare.

A couple of identified health related risks for metformin induced lactic acid buildup include:

• cardiac failure
• renal impairment
• pulmonary disease
• diabetic retinopathy
• diabetic ketoacidosis
• coronary heart disease
• excessive alcohol intake
• other acidosis conditions
• peripheral vascular disease
• B12, folate, iron deficiency
• high daily metformin dosage

An important precaution to guard against this life-threatening form of metformin caused lactic acidosis is to ensure you health care provider checks your electrolyte levels within a couple weeks after your initial dose.

Symptoms of lactic acid buildup are:

• thirst
• anorexia
• weakness
• abdominal pain
• nausea & vomiting
• altered level of consciousness
• hyperpnea ~ unusually deep & rapid breathing

Extreme exercise, for example participating in an ultra marathon, may cause just about all of these symptoms. Hopefully, those engaged in exercise beyond the norm know their limits and when to back off.

The primary treatment for lactic acidosis is via correction of the underlying health problem that caused its buildup. And if exercise is your instigator, then stop.

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