Have you developed pain in your arch and not had any injury? Were you just carrying on your normal daily activities?
This may be a sign of much bigger trouble, particularly a condition that we call posterior tibial tendonitis, or posterior tibial tendon dysfunction. In this condition, rather than just straining the arch, or the plantar fascia, the bottom of your foot, the foot is collapsing so much that you may develop sensitivity in the joints and in the major tendon that inserts in your arch. Pain will not only be localized, but it also begins to progress under and up the backside of your ankle.
The reason this is a great problem is that standard arch supports and good shoes and even prescriptive orthotics may not be enough to stop the pulling on your tendon. When this pain begins, the best thing to do, after you've tried some simple over-the-counter measures, you should see your podiatrist.
Evaluation and Treatment of Posterior Tibial Tendonitis
With a proper evaluation, we can determine how much your foot is collapsing and at what stage the problem has progressed to. Once this is done, we can prescribe an appropriate support for your foot, institute physical therapy, or in more severe cases, temporarily immobilize your foot to stop the symptoms.
If this is allowed to progress, instead of just tendonitis, the dysfunction can continue to where the tendon actually degenerates, and this results in further and further collapse of your foot.
So if either you've developed pain in your arch that is not going away after a couple of weeks, or you see further collapse of your foot than you've noticed previously, it's a sign that you need to come in, be evaluated, and halt this painful condition.
For more information about posterior tibial tendonitis visit:
https://www.bergdpm.com/library/posterior-tibial-tendon-dysfunction.cfm
