Considering that our feet carry the burden of supporting the entire rest of our body, when you are experience foot pain, and particularly heel pain, it can definitely have a big effect on your day-to-day life. While most cases of heel pain are associated with plantar fasciitis, other times the condition is misdiagnosed and the pain could be from a different problem, including the entrapment of your Baxter’s Nerve.
The Baxter’s Nerve is the first branch of the lateral plantar nerve; Don Baxter M.D. first described the condition in 1984. Even though Dr. Baxter wasn’t the first to discover it, his papers set the record and the name of this particular nerve and associated conditions.
Baxter’s Nerve Entrapment describes the acute pain felt when the first branch of the lateral plantar nerve becomes entrapped in the medial heel. The pain and numbness doesn’t automatically rule the diagnosis in the favor of Baxter’s Nerve Entrapment, but it has become common to test for this condition, which often has similar symptoms to someone suffering from plantar fasciitis.
Although treatments today are somewhat limited, there are options for sufferers of Baxter’s Nerve Entrapment. And even though the condition may be hard to distinguish from plantar fasciitis, both conditions require the same initial treatment.
Most podiatrists will start with taping the heel area to control uncontrollable motions, will prescribe a number of stretches or a physical therapy type of regimen, and they may also provide Medrol to help reduce inflammation.
If the heel pain sufferer responds immediately to this treatment, then the condition is likely plantar fasciitis. Although both conditions require the same initial treatments, sufferers of Baxter’s entrapment may have a weaker response. This initial treatment also helps to distinguish between the conditions and helps doctors determine their next steps in treatment.
Usually this distinction happens because the plantar fasciitis is under control and yet pain or numbness persists. If this is the scenario, doctors will often resort to steroid injections directly in the nerve. The steroid injections include injections of corticosteroid and a local anesthetic.
If this option is also exhausted and only works to release the pain temporarily, many times the next step becomes surgery. The surgery is intended to release the nerve, and this procedure is called neurolysis. Often times, because entrapment and plantar fasciitis go hand in hand, many doctors will choose to perform plantar fasciectomy surgery.
In many cases, this diagnosis leads to a 92% success rate in reducing or eliminating the heel pain. Many athletes, who often experience heel pain, return to the game just five weeks following the surgery.
While the diagnosis and procedures of addressing Baxter’s Nerve Entrapment have been controversial in the past, better technologies and more sophisticated approaches to address acute heel pain have led to higher success rates. The higher success rates are also thanks to more extensive knowledge on the subject.
More and more podiatrists are learning the accurate processes of examining the foot and diagnosing Baxter’s Nerve Entrapment. It has also become more common knowledge on how to conduct the initial treatments, and how to conduct the surgical procedure itself. These types of advances equal better care, more success stories and many treatment options.
