h) Lower Leg, Ankle and Foot

Never assume the root cause of a problem is at the place that hurts!

You may not have ever thought about it, but the eleven muscles of the lower leg are actually foot muscles. Anatomists call them extrinsic foot muscles, meaning they operate from outside the foot. The muscles in the foot itself are intrinsic foot muscles, meaning they operate from inside the foot. The implications of these facts is that the pain in your feet may not be coming from inside your feet themselves. You can waste a lot of time rubbing and soaking your feet if the cause of your pain is trigger points in your calves and shins.

Trigger points in lower leg muscles also produce most ankle pain. Pain in the front of the ankle almost always comes from the shin muscles. Pain around the Archilles tendon in the back of the ankle is usually from the calf muscles. A « sprained » ankle is often nothing more serious than referred pain from trigger points in the peroneus muscles of the outer side of the lower leg. Many problems of the ankles and feet that get labeles « tendinitis », « heel spurs », « plantar fasciitis », or a « strained ligament » can be fixed with simple massage of the muscles of the lower leg (Travell and Simons 1992, 355, 370, 427, 460).

Obviously, serious conditions resulting from physical trauma or congenital deformity do affect the ankles and feet of many people. Nevertheless, myofascial trigger points are always part of the picture even when other conditions exist. Knowing your trigger points will allow you to deal successfuly and reliably with most kinds of pain in your lower legs, ankles, and feet.

Source : Clair Davies, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, p.222.

NOTE: 98% of people with Parkinson's disease have an unhealed foot injury. More details here.