So you have heel pain and you have tried everything such as stretching injections night splints physical therapy and even expensive custom molded orthotics. What to do? Now your doctor is recommending surgery and you cant afford to take time off from work. And you are just not interested in surgery. Great news there is now a solution that can solve your problem.  Placenta tissue. Whaaaat? you say,  that’s gross. Well not really there are studies that show it works . I have  have used  placenta tissue otherwise known as amniotic membrane with great results in my practice for wound healing and tendon and ligament inflammation. I will save the wound healing for another blog , but it works great for foot ulcers. So how does it work?

First of all one of things to note about plantar fasciitis is that it is not fully an inflammatory disease. There are many studies that show it is a degenerative process, meaning the tendon/ fascia. That is why people have done well with platelet rich plasma injections also known as PRP injections and also coblation therapy (see my paper- Wrotslavsky poster Coblation ). These are methods that address the degenerative process of the tendon and helps regrow the micro circulation at the painful site.

Amniotic tissue has been used in therapy for over 100 years in burn treatments ulcers and multiple surgeries of the eye. The way it works is by reducing inflammation and enhancing soft tissue healing. There are many growth factors in amniotic tissue such as EGF, TGF, FGF that help stimulate epithilial cell growth and migration and can grow skin in ulcers and wounds. There is also present PDGF A and B which help the growth of  collagen , fibroblasts and smooth muscle cells.

The reason why this is becoming a treatment of choice for plantar fasciitis and other tendon and ligament injuries of the foot is that as opposed to PRP which requires your blood to be drawn or as opposed to coblation therapy the requires a trip to the operating room, Amniotic tissue comes in a liquefied form that can simply be injected into the affected site the same way one gets a steroid injection. This is a very exciting time in treatment of sports injuries email me with any questions drphilipw@sdfootdoc.com .