If you’ve been living with foot pain for months and you’ve ended up here searching for an acupuncture clinic, it’s very likely you’re tired of going in circles without a clear answer.
You might feel pain in your heel when you get out of bed, plantar fasciitis that comes and goes, metatarsalgia that turns any walk into a challenge, or discomfort every time you try to run or walk a bit more than usual.
And the hardest part isn’t just the physical pain, but the feeling that your life is shrinking around this problem.
In the clinic, we see many people like you. You’ve tried creams, anti-inflammatories, “one-size-fits-all” insoles, changing your shoes or even stopping activity altogether, but any relief, if it comes, doesn’t last long.
And that wears you down. That’s why today I want to explain to you, just as I would at the treatment table, how we can approach chronic foot pain by combining physiotherapy, foot biomechanics and acupuncture, and why the integrated approach of a clinic that understands all these pieces makes such a difference.
When foot pain stops being “a nuisance” and starts to control your life
At the beginning it usually starts as something small. A sharp twinge in the heel after a long walk, a burning sensation in the sole of the foot after a busy day, a discomfort in the front of the foot when you run. You think it will be something temporary, that resting for a couple of days will be enough.
But time passes and you start to recognise a pattern: in the mornings it’s hard to put weight on it, halfway through the day your foot “complains” more, and at night you feel as if every single step has accumulated.
At that point we’re no longer just talking about plantar fasciitis, heel pain or metatarsalgia. We’re talking about plans you cancel, walks you cut short, trips where you look at the map thinking how much you’re going to have to walk.
We’re talking about runners who stop training for fear of making things worse, and people who simply walk less because every outing ends in pain. And alongside the pain comes the doubt: “What if it stays like this forever? Is it arthritis? Is it something serious that no one is seeing?”
It’s at that point that many people start to look for something different and consider going to an acupuncture clinic that doesn’t just focus on the exact spot that hurts, but understands the whole picture: how you step, how your muscles behave, what kind of shoes you wear and how your nervous system is doing after so long living with pain.
What makes an acupuncture clinic integrated in a physiotherapy clinic different
When you hear the word “acupuncture”, it’s normal to have questions. Maybe you’ve heard someone say “it worked really well for me”, or the opposite, that “it’s just needles and nothing more”. The key isn’t only in the technique itself, but in the context in which it is used. It’s not the same to have acupuncture as an isolated treatment as it is to include it in an approach where we also work with physiotherapy, podiatry and biomechanics.
In an acupuncture clinic that’s integrated into a physiotherapy setting, acupuncture is not a trick or a stand-alone resource, but one more tool within a treatment plan that has several pillars. On one hand, we use acupuncture to modulate pain, relax muscles that have been tight for months and help the nervous system stop being so “on the defensive”. On the other hand, we assess how your foot behaves mechanically: how you load it, which muscles are doing too much or too little, how much mobility you have in your ankle and hip, and what happens when you walk or run.
When you come to see us, we’re not only interested in where it hurts, but since when, at what times of day it gets worse, what you’ve already tried, what you’re afraid of and what you want to get back to doing. Because it’s not the same to help someone who wants to walk to work without pain as it is to help someone who dreams of training for a half marathon again.
Looking beyond the painful spot: foot strike, muscles and mobility
Your foot isn’t just a piece of flesh with bones and tendons, it’s your base of support. Every step you take, every run, every moment standing goes through it. That’s why, when we examine someone with chronic heel pain, plantar fasciitis or metatarsalgia, we don’t just prod where it hurts and stop there.
In a full assessment we analyse how you load your foot in standing and in movement. We watch you walk, sometimes run, and we see whether you put more pressure on one area than another, whether your arch collapses or holds, whether your ankle locks up or moves more than it should. We assess the strength of the intrinsic muscles of the foot, those small muscles that support the arch and stabilise your weight-bearing. We check the mobility of the ankle, knee and hip, because very often the foot suffers for what is happening further up.
We also pay a lot of attention to your footwear. Which shoes you use for walking, which for running, what type of sole, what cushioning, how long you’ve had them. There are plenty of cases where a poorly chosen change of shoes, combined with a sudden increase in mileage, has been the trigger for pain that later becomes chronic.
When a patient sees, in their own body, that their fasciitis or heel pain is not “just because”, but the result of how they are stepping, how their muscles are working and how their body is organised in movement, that feeling of helplessness decreases. It’s no longer “something mysterious that happens to me”, but something we can work on with a plan.
Acupuncture as an ally against chronic pain
Now, let’s talk about acupuncture. What does it add to all of this? In the context of a clinic that approaches your problem globally, acupuncture is used to help regulate pain, improve the nervous system’s response and create a more favourable environment so that the mechanical work (exercises, changes in foot strike, insoles if needed) can have more effect.
When you’ve been in pain for months or years, your nervous system becomes more sensitive. It’s as if the volume of the “warning signal” were turned up. Movements that used to be normal are now interpreted as dangerous, and pain shows up very easily.
Acupuncture, applied at specific points, can help reduce that level of alert, relax muscles that are constantly tight and improve the way your body “reads” that area.
It doesn’t replace gait analysis or strength work, and it’s not a magic wand that “cures” plantar fasciitis on its own. But when it’s well integrated into the treatment, it allows you to tolerate certain exercises better, helps reduce pain and makes you feel less “hooked” into that constant sense of discomfort. And that really matters when it comes to moving forward in the treatment plan.
Custom insoles, exercises and technique changes: finding what you need
Another big question that comes up when you have chronic foot pain is: “Do I need insoles?”, “Do I have to buy different shoes?”, “What if I change the way I run?”.
Not everyone who comes through an acupuncture and physiotherapy clinic needs custom insoles, but in some cases they’re a very useful tool. If, when we analyse your gait, we see a very marked loading pattern that always overloads the same area, if your arch collapses a lot or if there’s a clear misalignment that keeps repeating, we consider whether custom insoles could help redistribute the load and give the overloaded area a break.
Alongside that, strengthening exercises for the arch, the foot muscles and the whole chain that includes ankle, knee and hip are key. Sometimes the foot complains because it’s doing the work that other muscles aren’t doing.
That’s why we include progressive exercises in your plan which, at the beginning, can be very simple but become more demanding as you improve.
With runners, in many cases we also review technique. It’s not about completely changing the way you run from one day to the next, but about adjusting certain details: cadence, how your foot lands, the type of shoe in relation to your gait and your pace.
For people who walk a lot, we look at how many hours they spend on their feet, what kind of sole they use, and whether they alternate shoes or always wear the same pair.
The idea is not to hand you a list of “forbidden” things, but to help you find the combination of insoles, exercises, footwear and, when needed, small technique changes that will stop your foot from living permanently on the edge.
Preventive care for nails, calluses and blisters: small details that also matter
If you enjoy walking or running, you know it’s not only tendons or the plantar fascia that hurt. Sometimes what ruins an outing is badly trimmed nails, a callus in the wrong place or a blister that always appears in the same spot.
This may seem minor, but these details change the way you load the foot and can encourage compensations that, over time, feed into your pain.
In the clinic we often check the state of your nails, their shape, whether they are constantly rubbing against the front of the shoe, whether they dig in on descents, or whether they make you unconsciously change how you step.
We also look at calluses: they aren’t just “extra skin”, they often indicate overload zones where the foot is defending itself by producing more protective layer. Understanding where they appear gives us clues about how you’re loading your feet.
With blisters it’s similar. If they always appear in the same place, something in your shoe, your sock or your gait is creating extra friction.
Adjusting small things, like the type of sock, the shape of the shoe, internal seams or even the way you lace up, can significantly reduce how often they appear.
This preventive care doesn’t replace treatment for chronic pain, but it does help your feet get to the end of the day, or to the end of a run, in better condition and without giving your nervous system yet more reasons to stay on high alert.
A progression plan to resume activity without fear of relapse
Once the pain starts to ease and we’ve worked on your gait, your muscles and, if needed, with acupuncture, the big question appears: “So how do I go back to walking or running without this flaring up again?”.
This is where we build a progression plan with you. We don’t talk about rigid deadlines, because every body and every story is different, but we do talk about stages. First we aim for you to handle your basic daily activities without your foot complaining too much. Then we begin to introduce slightly longer walks, with breaks as needed.
Later on, if your goal is to run, we add very gentle jogging intervals mixed with walking, and we see how your body responds.
The important thing is that you feel you’re not improvising. That you know what to do if one day your foot complains more, that you understand when it makes sense to push a bit and when it’s wiser to ease off.
In an acupuncture and physiotherapy clinic with regular follow-up, we can adjust insoles, vary exercises, modify the frequency of acupuncture sessions and adapt the plan according to your progress, instead of leaving you alone with a generic list of instructions.
When it makes sense to book an appointment at an acupuncture and physiotherapy clinic
You might be wondering whether you’ve reached the point where this step is worth taking. It usually makes sense to ask for help when foot pain is no longer something occasional, but an almost daily companion; when you’ve stopped doing things you enjoyed for fear of making it worse; when quick fixes have stopped working, or never worked in the first place.
If every morning you wake up wondering how your heel is going to feel today, if you choose plans based on how much walking they involve, if every attempt to get back into running ends with the same old discomfort, it may be time for someone to look at your case from start to finish.
In an acupuncture clinic that’s integrated in a physiotherapy and biomechanics setting, we’re going to assess both what can be seen on an ultrasound or in a physical exam, and what you feel in your day-to-day life, and we’ll design a plan with you that takes into account your body, your pace of life and your goals.
It’s not about promising miracle cures or telling you that you’ll be “perfect in X weeks”, but about supporting you realistically, giving you tools so that pain stops dictating your decisions.
If you recognise yourself in these lines and feel that your problem fits what we’ve talked about, the next logical step is for us to see you at the clinic, assess your case calmly and start working together so that your feet once again allow you to walk and run with confidence.