Bursa - (Bursiitis)
Bursiitis - Inflammed Bursa
Overview
Bursitis is a very common condition that commonly leads to foot pain . Once you understand what a bursitis actually is, you will wonder why it does not occur more often, particularly in the foot.
Bursitis is an inflamed bursal sac. A ‘bursal sac’ is a ’tissue pocket’ filled with fluid. A bursa acts to lubricate and reduce the friction between two surfaces in the body, (usually muscles and tendons as they glide over bony prominences) however their purpose in not limited to just muscles and tendons.
The body contains literally hundreds of bursal sacs, but in the foot there is just one naturally occurring (adventitious) bursal sac. It is located between the Achilles tendon and the heel bone (calcaneaus).
In the foot we have a unique situation in that between the shoes that we wear and the ground that we walk on various parts of the foot are constantly being “micro” traumatized meaning that every time we take a step we do a small amount of damage to a particular part of the foot and eventually that part of the foot begins to hurt.
The body’s response to this micro-trauma is to create a bursal sac to initially protect the area but if micro-traumatized enough the bursal sac itself becomes inflamed and we have a bursitis.