Stepping Towards Relief: How Do Compression Socks Help Plantar Fasciitis Pain?

Plantar Fasciitis sucks. Seriously- what kind of a disorder is most painful after relaxing? It’s one thing to expect pain after a tough training session or a limit-pushing race, but triggering aches and pains every morning as your feet hit the floor is just cruel. Even if the pain decreases as your feet stretch out and adjust, it can still convince you not to take that hike with your friends or cook that protein-rich dish your buddy recommended or go to that party you’ve been looking forward to or even get out of bed. Living with pain sucks! 

Fortunately, many treatments are proven to treat, manage, or cure PF. Lifestyle changes like morning and night stretches can help to relax the tendons and tissues that tense up to yank pain out from your arches (for no good reason!). Some treatments are more instantaneous, like steroid injections or surgery, but they tend to be offered only as a last resort. Of course, you could always strap into night splints or a long-haul boot cast. 

Before taking any more drastic measures, you might consider giving compression socks a try.  You might just find that they’re your hero gear. You may have noticed that we have a lot of those. At MudGear, we design our gear for performance. If getting through your day and managing your pain is a feat, that's performance enough for us to account for. Our socks are tough enough for any Spartan champion, but they're also strong enough to support tender feet and help reduce stressors that can lead to brutal PF pain.

Understanding Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis affects your life like a butterfly effect. Repeated stress such as walking, running, or even just standing couples with an unknown impetus to inflame the Plantar Fascia tissue. This tissue swells tight like if you’ve ever tried to pop a balloon between two hands. As more pressure is applied, the balloon’s surface gets more and more strained, in turn pushing back harder against your hands until you can’t squeeze any farther. Unlike a balloon, your PF won’t pop. But the pressure and strain keep building, and so does the pain. As the PF tissue becomes tighter and tighter, it tries to offload some of the tension by pulling against the plantar-heel fat pad. Unfortunately, this offers no relief. Instead, the fat pad becomes aggravated as well and stretches away from the heel bone. After enough time and strain, the heel bone itself can begin to bruise. Ouch. 

This series of increasingly painful processes moves on to butterfly their effects through most of your life. Sustained pain causes many to abandon activities that require additional standing, walking, or running time. This leads to missing out on activities you previously enjoyed out of fear of causing flare-ups. Plantar Fasciitis doesn’t always have an easy fix, but most people experience relief within 2-9 months of a treatment like stretching, splinting, or compression. 

The Science Behind Compression Socks

Compression socks have been engineered to solve a variety of ground-up issues. The most common is to support the feet and legs in high-stress activities, such as for distance runners. Compression is like a magic trick. It increases blood flow and circulation while simultaneously deflating inflammation- like allowing air to escape that high-pressure balloon analogy from earlier. In runners, this means preventing shin splints and encouraging quicker recovery from tough runs. Usually, this sort of activity demands a graduated compression sock. These socks feature the most compression at the ankle (added stability!) and a laxer squeeze at the upper calf. 

But Do Compression Socks Help with Plantar Fasciitis?

Plantar Fasciitis pain isn’t stored in the leg, though. It comes from the soles of your feet. 

The compression socks that most help PF are actually known as Plantar Fasciitis compression socks. Creative, we know. The main feature of these socks is a supportive band of compression that scoops under the arch of the foot to hug and support the PF tissue itself. Remember how graduated socks increase blood flow and decrease inflammation through the calf and ankle? PF socks do the same to the tendons and tissues that are the cause of foot pain. 

By combining the benefits of increased circulation, reduced inflammation, and support for the arch tendons, our compression socks can provide preventative and restorative relief from Plantar Fasciitis pain, especially in moderate or short-term cases. MudGear provides high-quality compression socks that feature true graduated compression along with inbuilt PF-fighting arch support.

In most cases, Plantar Fasciitis shoes are a good investment as well. 

Targeted Support for Aching Feet

Despite our love of pushing Man to the very extremes of his nature, braving icy mud, rushing water, and great physical strain, MudGear’s products are meant to mitigate strain, not increase it. We believe that there’s no bad weather, only bad gear. The same can hold true for your life outside of competitive spheres. There are no bad days, only bad gear. Our extensive range of graduated compression socks also feature the crazy-strong arch support of PF socks to reduce pain and inflammation. Upgrade your gear. Upgrade your day. Treat your pain. 

At the end of a race, there’s celebration. The exhausted racer has trained long and hard, braved mud and rain and injury to complete the event, and now gets to rest and set new goals. Your pain isn’t a race. There’s no choice, no training, and no finish line. We can still help you get the correct gear for it. Warriors don’t fight without armor. With supportive gear and the right application, our compression socks can help you suit up to better face PF pain and always prevail. 

Comfort and Convenience

Come on, Warrior. Don’t stay in the trenches when there’s progress to be made. MudGear’s compression line offers comfort and style that stands out from other PF sock makers. For too long, the socks have been manufactured in colors poorly selected to blend into skin. The result is what appears to be a mottled, lumpy bare leg. MudGear doesn’t make halfhearted attempts to blend in. Our socks are designed to stand out. Our designs incorporate seamless support with the classic look of activewear. The socks disappear under long pants, fit right in with athletic attire, and look crisper than most shoes when worn alone. That’s right- even without custom orthotics, even without shoes at all, our compression socks work to support and treat PF. Check out our full selection below to find the right styles to suit you.