Cushioned Heel Pads for Fat Pad Atrophy

There are many reasons for symptoms under the foot which is often an issue for professionals to diagnose what it is. Among those things that isn't very frequent will be an atrophy with the fat pad which is required to cushion and also safeguard the foot. This fat pad safeguards the bones and also other structures underneath the foot. This will likely particularly be true and critical in athletes that engage in sporting activities which have a lot of hard impacts with the ground for example running. During running they do enjoy the additional stability of a running shoe to support the feet and lesson those forces from the ground. The primary signs and symptoms of this condition are generally to some degree imprecise and non-specific, so often the expert clinician will have to exclude other problems and do away with them as the reason for the symptoms leaving only this atrophy with the fat pad as being the explanation for the symptoms. The most common manifestation is simply a imprecise discomfort beneath the ball or heel in the foot, which is more painful when standing up and in many cases worse when engaging in high-impact activities. Not only is it painful underneath the foot, the lack of cushioning can have influences further up the body.

The reason for this atrophy or wasting away with the fat pad is just not very clear. It does become a bit thinner as people become older, so it is a normal thing. In most it's not necessarily an issue unless the wasting will be considerable or if exercise amounts tend to be high. It simply appears that as we grow older some waste at a quicker rate than others and the cause for that is just not apparent.

Once the wasting of the fat pad is established as being the explanation for the symptoms the best treatment is to put some cushioned pad underneath the foot within the footwear. The hardness of this pad has to be similar to the density with the the fat pad might be so that it can do its work correctly. If it is too soft, then it will undoubtedly compress beneath the feet and do nothing at all. Should it be way too hard, then it is likely to make virtually no difference for the condition. Many times the cushioned heel pads are far too soft. A soft pad can feel good should you poke it using your fingers, but in the event that the fingers could flatten the pad, subsequently bodyweight is also likely to compress this and do nothing. These kinds of cushioned heel pads could be very successful if you get the correct one.

An alternative is to use fat grafting. This is the surgical treatment which involves getting body fat cells and also tissue from a different part of the body and placing them under the heel and front foot. Even though this procedure is mostly very helpful it is not a procedure which is performed regularly because there is a surgical risk using any surgery and the option of the cushioned heel pads is often a lot more than beneficial, and so the use of surgical grafting of body fat will still only be used in the more significant instances.