Foot arch pain: what causes it and what helps

Foot arch pain is most often plantar fasciitis, and the giveaway is the pattern rather than the place: pain at the front of the heel and into the arch, worst on your first few steps out of bed, easing once you have been moving for a few minutes. Where your finger lands matters as much as when it hurts, because three other problems sit in the same stretch of foot. Pain along the inside of the arch running up behind the ankle bone, with that arch looking flatter than the other one and the heel harder to lift, points at the tendon that holds the arch up. Burning, tingling or numbness in the sole is a nerve, not a strained tissue, and an ache over one point of bone that has grown worse week by week since you increased your running is treated as a possible stress fracture, which is the one thing here that gets worse if you walk it off. Pain in the arch when you have diabetes or reduced feeling in your feet is checked by a clinician, not managed at home, whatever it feels like.

Warning signs, and when to get help

What causes foot arch pain?

Four problems account for most of it. They sit close enough together that hardly anyone sorts them out alone.

The commonest by a long way is plantar fasciitis: the thick band under the sole, irritated where it anchors into the heel bone. The tendon that holds the arch up can begin to fail, and then the shape of the foot changes along with the pain. A nerve can be squeezed where it passes behind the inside of the ankle. A bone in the arch can develop a stress fracture, usually some weeks after a jump in running, walking or standing.

That is not the whole list. An arch that has always been low can get sore when the hours on your feet go up, which is a loading problem and not an injury; flat feet deals with that version. Arch pain also turns up as part of an inflammatory arthritis, which is why several painful, swollen, stiff joints appears in the warning signs on this page as a reason to see a doctor within a few days. In children the NHS names a lack of vitamin D or calcium among the causes of pain in the bottom of the foot, which is one reason a child's sore foot is assessed rather than treated at home.

If you came here from an NHS page you will have been reading about pain in the bottom of the foot, which is where the NHS files the arch, the ball and the sole together. Nothing below names your problem. Use it to describe what is happening accurately enough to get the right appointment at the right speed.

Where in your arch does it hurt?

Rest the foot on your opposite knee and press around with one fingertip. Notice which spot makes you wince, not which area feels vaguely tender. Where that spot sits narrows the list a long way.

The front edge of the heel, where the sole starts to curve up into the arch, is plantar fascia territory. The inside border of the arch is the tendon, especially when the soreness runs up and behind the bony bump on the inner ankle. A single tender point on the bone at the top of the arch, just in front of the ankle, is the one to take seriously; you can cover it with a fingertip. Pain you cannot pin down at all, spreading or burning across the sole, is behaving like a nerve.

The middle of the arch, between the heel and the ball, tells you least. A tired foot aches there after a long day. Fascia pain spreads there too, once it has been going for months. If that is your only sore area and nothing else on this page fits, start with how much the foot is being asked to do.

Why is arch pain worst on the first steps of the morning?

Overnight the foot sits with the toes pointed and nothing pressing on the sole, so the fascia and the calf settle short. Then you stand up and ask that tissue to stretch out and carry your body weight in the same instant. An irritated fascia complains for a few paces and then gives in. People describe limping to the bathroom and being fine by the time they reach the kitchen.

Report that pattern and you have given a clinician more than any other single detail. The physical therapy guideline puts it in the picture it uses to identify plantar heel pain: pain that is most noticeable on the first steps after a period of inactivity, and also worse after long spells on your feet (Koc and colleagues, 2023). The same guideline supports a 1 to 3 month course of night splints for people who consistently have pain on that first step. That is how much weight clinicians put on one detail.

Not every morning pain follows that script. Pain that stays just as bad after 20 minutes of walking is not following the fascia pattern. Pain that is worse by evening than it was first thing is following load, which points more toward the tendon or the bone. Heel pain in the morning goes through the same first-step question for the heel itself.

Is it plantar fasciitis, or something else?

Most arch pain is the fascia, and most people treating arch pain are treating the fascia. The question that nobody answers well is what to do when the treatment is right and the pain is not moving.

The guideline is unusually direct about it. It asks clinicians to look for other diagnoses, naming inflammatory spine and joint disease, thinning of the heel fat pad and a benign fibrous lump at the heel end of the fascia, when what the person describes does not match the expected pattern or when the symptoms are simply not resolving (Koc and colleagues, 2023). Add the tendon, the nerve and the stress fracture from this page and you have the realistic shortlist.

In the clinic it cashes out simply. If you have done 12 weeks of calf and fascia stretching, loading work for the foot, decent shoes and an arch-supporting insole and the arch is no better at all, go back and be examined again. The guideline also asks clinicians to assess limited ankle bend, a high body mass index in people who are not athletes, running, and weight-bearing work in conditions with poor shock absorption as risk factors for developing this pain in the first place (Koc and colleagues, 2023). Several of those are worth changing while you wait for an appointment. The plantar fasciitis program carries the staged version of all of it.

An arch that is flattening, not just sore

This is the version people miss, and waiting costs more here than anywhere else on the page. The tendon on the inside of the ankle, tibialis posterior, holds the arch up through every step you take. As it begins to fail the arch drops, the heel drifts outward, and the foot gets harder to push off from.

OrthoInfo describes pain and swelling along the inside of the foot and ankle, a flattening arch as the earliest visible change, a heel that angles outward, and difficulty rising onto the toes on that leg. It is blunt about what happens if nothing is done: a subtle deformity with mild symptoms can progress to a painful, poorly functioning flat foot, with ligaments stretching, bones shifting and arthritis following.

A mirror and a photograph will tell you most of what you need. Stand in front of a mirror and compare the two arches, then look at your heels from behind in a photograph taken by someone else, because an outward-tilting heel is obvious from the back and invisible from the front. Then try to rise onto tiptoe on each leg separately, holding a counter. An arch you cannot lift, or a heel raise you can manage on one side and not the other, belongs on the warning list on this page, which sends you to a doctor within a few days. The posterior tibial tendon dysfunction program covers what the treatment looks like.

Burning or numbness rather than a sore spot

Nerve pain in the sole reads differently from a strained tissue. It burns, tingles, feels like pins and needles or hot water, and it often spreads out instead of sitting in one place. Night and rest can be the worst of it, which is close to the opposite of the fascia pattern, and the first step of the morning is not reliably the sore one.

Add tenderness behind the inside of the ankle bone and a nerve squeezed at that point becomes one possibility; tarsal tunnel syndrome describes it. Burning in both feet, usually worse in the evening, points instead at the whole nerve rather than one spot along it. That needs a medical assessment and not a foot program.

Anything numb changes the rules. A foot that cannot feel properly cannot warn you about a blister, a stone in the shoe or a hot floor, so the diabetes and neuropathy lines in the warning signs below apply to you even when the arch pain itself seems minor. If you have diabetes or reduced feeling in your feet, get new foot pain checked instead of treating it from this page.

Arch pain after running or a jump in training

Arch pain that arrived a few weeks after you added distance, hills, speed or a new pair of shoes is usually tissue complaining about the rate of change, not the amount. The fascia and the calf are the usual sufferers. Cut the recent increase by roughly a quarter, keep the frequency, and build again more slowly once the arch is quiet the morning after a run. Running covers the load side of this properly.

One pattern does not belong in that paragraph at all. Pain at a single point of bone at the top of the arch, coverable with a fingertip, worse the longer you are on your feet and sore when you hop on that leg, is treated as a possible stress fracture until a clinician says otherwise. OrthoInfo describes exactly that: pain at one specific spot, mainly during or after activity, easing with rest at first, then arriving during walking and daily tasks as the injury progresses, sometimes with swelling, bruising and night aching. It also makes the point that an early X-ray can look normal, because bone swelling does not show up on one.

That bone has a name worth knowing: the navicular. An anatomical review of navicular and fifth metatarsal base stress fractures describes the central part of it as a poorly supplied zone, with little or no direct blood penetration and the fewest vascular openings on its inner surface, and ties that restricted supply, together with the loading pattern, to delayed healing, non-union and refracture (Liu and colleagues, 2026). The same review is careful about how far the anatomy goes: in most navicular bones there is a dense blood supply and no avascular zone at all, so how the bone is loaded matters as much as how it is fed. It is anatomy, not a treatment trial: it does not compare resting the foot with continuing to run, and it gives no protocol, so read it as the reason clinicians take this bone seriously. What it does support is plain: a tender point on the top of the midfoot after a training increase is a reason to stop running and get an opinion, not a reason to stretch harder.

What follows a confirmed one is slower than most people expect. A systematic review of high-risk stress fractures pooled eight navicular studies covering 200 people, with return to sport as the outcome, and found a weighted mean of 22 weeks for those treated without surgery and 16 weeks for those operated on. Six weeks in a cast with no weight through the foot was what most of that non-surgical treatment consisted of, and the review's own conclusion is that when this fracture is treated without surgery, weight bearing should be avoided. Surgery gave the earlier return in that comparison, but the authors grade the evidence as low and at high risk of bias, from small studies, and report that the operations used varied widely, so which route suits a particular fracture is for the surgeon who sees the images to judge (Mallee and colleagues, 2015). The review does settle one thing: walking on it does not work, whichever route you end up on.

Arch pain in pregnancy

Sore arches come up a lot in pregnancy and get written about very little. The load changes from more than one direction at once: more weight going through the same two feet, more fluid in the tissues, and a tendency for the arch to spread and flatten a little. The result is usually an ache in the arch and the inner heel by the end of the day, in both feet at once.

What helps is unglamorous and works. Shoes with a real sole, worn indoors as well as out, because a bare foot on a hard kitchen floor is where most of the standing happens. Shorter spells on your feet, broken up, instead of one long one. Soft insoles, which the NHS includes in its self-care advice for pain in the bottom of the foot, bought a size judgment roomier than you would normally choose, since feet often swell through pregnancy. And the sitting exercises on this page in preference to the two standing ones, the calf stretch and the single leg heel raise, because balance changes as the pregnancy goes on.

One of those sitting exercises needs a word of its own. The isometric ankle inversion is done sitting on the floor, so if getting down there and up again is awkward later on, leave it for now or ask your midwife or physio for another way to do it.

Some cautions still apply. Arch pain in pregnancy carries the same warning signs as anyone else's, including the swollen, tender, warm calf that needs advice the same day, and pregnancy raises clot risk, it does not lower it. One-sided arch pain with a visible change in the shape of that foot is not explained by pregnancy and needs looking at. Check with your midwife or physio before you start.

Arch pain in a foot that has been operated on

If the arch you are reading about has had an operation, the page above changes meaning. New or increasing pain is information your surgical team needs, not a signal to do a little less and carry on. Some of the operations done around the arch leave it sore in ways that are expected for a while, and the only person who knows which is which for your foot is the one who did it.

Several operations put pain in this part of the foot. A release of the plantar fascia, done when a long course of non-surgical treatment has not worked. A reconstruction for a collapsing arch, which may involve the tendon, the bones or both. A release of the tarsal tunnel to take pressure off the nerve. And bunion surgery, which changes how the inside of the foot takes load, so the arch can ache while the foot relearns its push-off.

Two more belong on that list, and both sit in the arch itself. A stress fracture that will not heal can be fixed with a screw, sometimes with a bone graft, and in this part of the foot that bone is usually the navicular; a systematic review of high-risk stress fractures found that the operations used on it varied widely from surgeon to surgeon (Mallee and colleagues, 2015). Joints in the middle of the foot can also be fused, for arthritis there or as part of correcting a collapsed arch, and what people call bunion surgery is sometimes a fusion at the base of the big toe's long bone, which sits in the arch rather than at the toe. That list is still not complete. An operation nobody has named here is no different, and everything below applies to any of them.

After any of them, the range you are allowed, how much weight may go through the foot and when loading starts are set by your surgeon and physio. Those instructions come before anything on this site. This page gives no dates and no weight-bearing limits on purpose.

Those limits differ between surgeons for the same operation, and they differ again with what was actually done inside your foot, so a timeline you read anywhere else is not yours. Feeling better is not permission either: bone that was cut and tendon that was repaired knit on their own schedule, and coming out of a boot or putting more weight through the foot sooner than your surgeon allows is how a correction is lost.

A few things here get reported, not managed. A wound that is leaking, oozing or opening at its edges, or a foot that is getting more red, hot, swollen or painful instead of settling, or a temperature with any of that: contact your surgical team the same day, or get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them, and the warning list below carries the full wording. A newly swollen, warm, tender calf, which needs medical advice the same day and emergency services if you are short of breath or have chest pain, because a leg that has been operated on carries a raised clot risk for weeks. And a foot or toe that turns cold, pale, blue or black, which is an emergency department straight away without driving yourself.

For the rest, judge progress in weeks and not in days, and tell your team about a change of direction. Pain that was improving and has started climbing again is worth a phone call instead of a wait. An arch that is dropping again, a toe drifting back toward where it started, a foot that looks different from the one in your post-operative photographs, or a new sense of the foot giving way sits on the warning list below at the same-day level, because a correction held by screws or stitches can slip without any new injury and without a snap. If you are not sure whether an exercise on this page is allowed yet, the answer is to ask the team who operated. After foot or toe surgery, such as bunion surgery, or a broken bone in the foot or toes, ask your surgeon or physio when to start.

What helps arch pain at home

The NHS self-care advice for pain in the bottom of the foot is a sensible first fortnight: rest and raise the foot when you can, a cold pack wrapped in a cloth for up to 20 minutes at a time, roomy shoes with a low heel and a soft sole, soft insoles or pads, gentle foot and ankle stretches, and paracetamol or ibuprofen gel. It also advises against the activity you think is causing it, long spells of standing or walking, and high heels or tight, pointed shoes. There is one exception to raising the leg. If your toes are numb, tingling or burning, or the cast or boot feels tight, do not prop the foot higher than your hip and do not put ice on it, and read the warning signs below for what to do instead.

The guideline adds to that list, and each item has evidence behind it. Stretching aimed specifically at the plantar fascia, together with calf stretching, for pain and function in both the short and the longer term. Insoles, ready made or custom fitted, used alongside the rest of the plan, which is where the guideline's 2023 revision landed after four meta-analyses found a small effect or none for insoles used on their own in the first 3 months. And resistance training for the muscles of the foot and ankle, which is the part most home routines leave out (Koc and colleagues, 2023).

The change people underrate is the indoor shoe. Plenty of people wear supportive shoes to work, then spend four hours of the evening barefoot on tile or laminate, which is when the arch does its least supported standing of the day. A pair of slippers or indoor shoes with a proper sole, put on when you come in, costs very little and takes nothing away from the rest of the plan.

Exercises for foot arch pain

The aim is narrow at first. Give the fascia and calf back some length, wake up the small muscles under the arch, and only then start loading the whole foot and calf through the full range. The guideline supports both halves of that, the stretching and the resistance work, so neither one is optional for long (Koc and colleagues, 2023).

Start with the sitting work and the calf stretch. Add the single leg heel raise last, and only when you can do it with the heel lifting straight up instead of rolling out toward the little toes. A working ache in the arch, the sole or the calf during these is expected. Sharp pain at one point of bone, or an arch that is clearly worse the next morning, means the amount was wrong and not the exercise.

Check these before you start. Leave all of them out until you have been seen if one point of bone in the arch or on the top of the midfoot is tender to press, because the calf stretch and the single leg heel raise put your body weight straight through that area and the inversion hold pulls on the tendon that attaches there.

After foot or toe surgery, such as bunion surgery, or a broken bone in the foot or toes, ask your surgeon or physio when to start, and if your leg is in a cast or boot, ask your fracture clinic which movements to do. After an ankle fracture or ankle surgery, follow your surgeon's or physio's plan, and start these exercises only when they have cleared you. Calf stretching is often limited for the first months after an Achilles tendon repair, so follow your surgeon's and physio's instructions before you try it, and ask them about the single leg heel raise as well, because rising onto one foot puts more load through that tendon than anything else on this page. If you have had a hip replacement, get the go-ahead from your surgeon or physio before the plantar fascia stretch, because lifting your foot onto the opposite knee bends that hip and turns it outward, and many surgeons ask you to avoid that for the first months after some operations.

After an operation on the arch itself, such as a reconstruction for a collapsing arch or a release of the plantar fascia, ask the same question about the single leg heel raise. Rising onto one foot is the heaviest load on this page for a repaired tendon or a released fascia, and it waits for your surgeon's say-so rather than for the foot to feel ready.

With a heart condition or high blood pressure, check with your doctor before you start, and if you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every hold and never hold your breath. If you are pregnant, check with your midwife or physio before you start.

If you have osteoporosis, numbness or reduced feeling in your feet, or have fallen in the past year, keep a hand on a counter for the single leg heel raise and both hands on the wall for the calf stretch, and ask your physio before you do either without support. The isometric ankle inversion is done sitting on the floor, so if getting down there and back up again is not safe for you on your own, leave it out until your physio has shown you another way.

A child or teenager with arch pain should be assessed before starting any exercise program. With diabetes, get any new foot pain checked by your doctor before you start these exercises, and raise the single leg heel raise with them by name, because rising onto one foot pushes your weight through the ball of the foot and the big toe, which is one of the places a foot that cannot feel properly breaks down first.

Exercises that can help

Read the checks just above before you start any of these: they cover an operated foot, a cast or boot, an ankle fracture, a replaced hip, pregnancy, blood pressure, falls and anyone still growing. Four of the six are done sitting, so a sore arch never has to hold your weight while it is working: the plantar fascia stretch, the two towel exercises and the isometric ankle inversion, which is done sitting on the floor rather than on a chair. The calf stretch and the single leg heel raise are both done standing. The plantar fascia stretch is often held for 10 to 30 seconds and repeated 3 to 10 times, up to 3 times a day, with the first round before you stand up in the morning. The calf stretch typically uses holds of about 30 seconds, 2 to 3 times on each leg, once or twice a day. Towel scrunches are often 2 to 3 lengths of the towel, or sets of 10 to 20 grips, once or twice daily, and towel sweeps 2 or 3 passes of the whole towel in each direction, once or twice a day. Isometric ankle inversion usually means holds of 5 to 10 seconds, repeated 5 to 10 times, once or twice a day, starting with a gentle push, and the single leg heel raise 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 15 on each leg, a few days a week, with many people starting on two feet first. Your physio will adjust this, and after an operation the plan from your surgeon and physio comes first.

When should you see a physio or a doctor about arch pain?

Book an assessment if the arch is no better after 2 weeks of the self-care above, which is the point the NHS uses, or if it is stopping you working, walking or sleeping, or if it keeps coming back every time you build your activity up. Go sooner if the arch has changed shape, if you cannot rise onto tiptoe on that leg, or if the sole burns or feels numb. Arch pain is a rewarding thing to have examined, because a clinician can test the tendon, press the bone, check the nerve and watch you walk inside one appointment.

Some of it does not wait for an appointment at all. The warning signs below carry their own timing, from calling an ambulance to seeing someone in a week or two, and they include routes written for a stress fracture, a joint or skin infection, a blood clot in the calf, a foot that is losing feeling or starting to drag, and anyone whose diabetes or reduced feeling in the feet makes foot pain an unreliable guide. Read them before you read anything else on this page if you have any doubt about how fast to act.

Pain just outside the arch has its own pages here. Pain further forward, under the ball of the foot rather than the arch, is covered by metatarsalgia, and pain that runs from the arch up into the back of the heel and the calf often belongs with Achilles tendinopathy. Foot and ankle pain by body area lists the other foot pages on this site.

Related exercise programs

Warning signs

Get emergency help now

Emergency: part of your foot or a toe turns cold, pale, blue or black. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself, as the blood supply to the foot may be blocked.

Get help now, day or night

In a cast or boot, the pain gets worse, your toes feel numb, tingle or burn or look more swollen, or the cast or boot feels too tight. Stop, raise your foot to about hip level and no higher, keep moving your toes and contact your fracture clinic or get medical advice straight away. If you wear a boot, loosen the straps but keep it on. Do not prop the foot higher than that and do not put ice on it, because if pressure is building up inside the lower leg both of those cut down the blood reaching your foot. If you cannot move your toes, the pain is severe even after painkillers, or the numbness, tingling, burning or swelling has not settled within 30 minutes of raising your foot, go to your fracture clinic or an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
Your tendon pain or swelling started while you were taking a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, such as ciprofloxacin or levofloxacin, or in the months after a course. Contact your doctor straight away. The UK medicines regulator (MHRA) advises stopping the antibiotic at the first sign of tendon pain or swelling and talking to your doctor. Hold off the foot and ankle exercises until you have been checked.

Get help today

Same day: a sudden pop or snap at the back of your ankle or heel, a feeling that someone kicked you there, or sudden pain there after which you cannot push off or rise onto your toes on that leg. Stop, take the weight off that leg carefully and go to an urgent care center or emergency department the same day, even if you can still walk, as this can be a torn Achilles tendon.
Same day: you felt a sudden pop or snap on the inside of your ankle, or a sudden sharp pain there, and since then you can no longer rise onto tiptoe on that leg when you could before, or the arch has suddenly dropped. Stop the exercises, take the weight off that foot as much as you can and get it checked the same day at an urgent care center or emergency department, even if you can still walk. The tendon that holds up the arch (tibialis posterior) may have torn.
Same day: you felt a sudden pop or tearing under the foot, followed by bruising and difficulty walking. Stop the exercises, keep your weight off that foot as much as you can, and get it checked the same day.
Same day: you cannot put weight on the foot, you heard a snap, grinding or popping noise at the time of an injury, or the pain started with a fall or a landing from height. Get it checked the same day.
Same day: the pain is severe or makes you feel faint, dizzy or sick, you cannot walk, or the shape of your foot has changed. Get medical advice the same day.
Same day: the foot is hot, red and swollen, or you have a fever or feel unwell. Get medical help the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
Same day: you have diabetes or numb feet, and one foot becomes hot, swollen or red, or changes color or shape, with or without pain. Take your weight off that foot straight away and get advice the same day from your doctor or your diabetes foot team. This can be Charcot foot, where the bones and joints of the foot are damaged and the foot can collapse. Do not exercise that foot until it has been checked. If you also have a fever or feel very unwell, or redness is spreading up your foot or leg, go to an emergency department.
Same day: you have diabetes or numb feet and find a new blister, cut or sore on your foot, especially one you did not feel, a wound that smells or is leaking, or new pain in your foot that you cannot explain. Get it seen by your doctor or foot team the same day. If you also have a fever or feel very unwell, redness is spreading up your foot or leg, or part of your foot or a toe turns black, go to an emergency department.
Same day: a burn, a scald or a blister on your foot or lower leg from hot water, a hot floor or pavement, a hot water bottle, an electric blanket, a heat pad, or sitting with your feet near a fire or radiator. Keep your weight off that foot and get it seen by your doctor or foot team the same day, however small the mark looks and even if it does not hurt. A foot that cannot feel heat can be burned deeply before you notice, and a burn on a numb foot can turn into an ulcer. If you also have a fever or feel very unwell, redness is spreading up your foot or leg, or part of your foot or a toe turns black, go to an emergency department.
Same day: a sore, ulcer or wound on your foot that your team already knows about gets bigger or deeper, starts to smell or to leak more, the skin around it turns red, hot or puffy, or it has not started to heal. Get advice from your doctor or foot team the same day rather than waiting for your next appointment, and keep your weight off that foot. If you also have a fever or feel very unwell, redness is spreading up your foot or leg, or part of your foot or a toe turns black, go to an emergency department.
Same day: a wound, blister or sore on your leg or foot becomes more red, hot, swollen or painful, or starts to leak or ooze, is still leaking in the second week or has never stopped, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery. Contact your fracture clinic or medical team the same day.
Same day: since your operation, your wound is oozing, leaking or has pus coming out of it, or its edges start to come apart, or your foot is tender, swollen, painful or red and it is not getting better or is getting worse, or you have a high temperature or feel hot and cold or shivery. Redness can be harder to see on brown or black skin. Contact your surgical team the same day, or get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them. These can be signs of an infection in the wound, or deeper in a joint, a bone or around metalwork in the foot. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
Same day: since your operation, you felt a crack, snap or sudden give in the operated foot, or it has started to give way under you, or you suddenly cannot put weight through it when you could before, or the shape of the foot is changing, with the arch dropping again, a toe that was straightened shifting back, or the foot starting to look out of line or to sit differently in a boot or cast, or a boot or cast that fitted starts to feel loose and roomy. Bones that were cut, moved or fused, and tendons that were repaired or moved, are held in place by screws, plates, wires or stitches while they knit, and a correction can slip without any new injury and without a snap. It is put right more easily when it is found early. Stop the exercises, keep your weight off that foot and contact your surgical team the same day, or get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them. If the foot looks clearly out of shape, or you cannot stand on it and cannot reach anyone, go to an urgent care center or an emergency department.
Same day: you have a plate, screws or a wire in your foot and the skin over the metal is thinning, shiny, dusky or darkening, has blistered or opened, is weeping fluid, or you can see or feel bare metal through it. Contact your surgical team the same day, or get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them, and keep the area clean, dry and covered until you are seen. Skin that is breaking down over metalwork can let infection reach the bone. If you also have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or redness is spreading up your foot or leg, go to an emergency department.
Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
Same day: a leg or foot that is getting weaker, for example your foot drags, catches on the ground or slaps down when you walk (foot drop). Get medical advice the same day. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, go to an emergency department.
Same day: the pain is there at night or at rest as well as when you stand and walk, and it is getting worse. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.

Book an appointment

Within a few days: the pain sits at one small spot on a bone that you can point to with a finger, such as the shinbone or a bone in the foot, the bone aches at rest or at night, or hopping on that leg hurts at that one spot. Stop running, jumping and any exercise that hurts at that spot, and see a doctor within a few days, as this can be a stress fracture. This matters even more if the spot is on the front of the shinbone or the top of the foot in the middle, just in front of the ankle (the navicular bone), because doctors treat stress fractures there as high risk. If walking hurts or makes you limp, get it checked the same day. An X-ray can look normal for the first 2 to 3 weeks, so a normal early X-ray does not rule it out.
Within a few days: the arch on one foot has dropped, suddenly or over weeks or months, or you can no longer rise onto tiptoe standing on that leg alone, especially with pain or swelling along the inside of the ankle. See a doctor within a few days. This can be a sign that the tendon that holds up the arch (tibialis posterior) is failing, and it can keep getting worse without treatment. If you have diabetes or numb feet, a change in the shape of your foot is a same-day sign, as described above.
Within a few days: you have not been diagnosed, and several joints in your hands, wrists or feet are painful, swollen and stiff, especially in the morning. This is not an emergency, but see your doctor within a few days, because early treatment can stop the condition getting worse and lower the risk of joint damage.
Within a day or two: the pain is there at night or at rest as well as when you stand and walk, and it is getting worse. If you have had cancer, now or in the past, or are losing weight without trying, see your doctor sooner, within a day or two, and mention it. This applies even if the pain is not getting worse.
Within a few days: the pain is there at night or at rest as well as when you stand and walk, and it is getting worse. See your doctor within a few days.
Within a week or two: you have numbness, tingling, burning or loss of feeling in the foot. Book an assessment with a doctor or physio in the next week or two. If it came on over hours or days, started after an injury, is spreading, or comes with weakness in the foot, get medical advice the same day.

Common questions

How long does foot arch pain last?

Nobody can give you a date, and the honest answer depends on which tissue is sore and how much standing and walking you do each day. Pain that followed a clear jump in running or hours on your feet often quiets down within a few weeks once the load comes down and the shoes improve. Plantar heel and arch pain is known for running on much longer than people expect, which is why the physical therapy guideline supports active treatment: stretching for the fascia and the calf, resistance work for the muscles of the foot and ankle, insoles used alongside those rather than on their own, and a 1 to 3 month course of night splints for anyone who reliably hurts on the first step of the morning (Koc and colleagues, 2023). The NHS asks you to see a doctor if foot pain has not improved after 2 weeks of looking after it at home. A useful rule while you wait: compare this week with last week, not today with yesterday, because arch pain swings about from day to day.

Can foot arch pain be something other than plantar fasciitis?

Yes, and the guideline says so in as many words. It asks clinicians to look for diagnoses other than plantar heel pain, naming inflammatory spine and joint disease, thinning of the heel fat pad and a benign lump in the fascia, when what the person describes does not match the usual picture or when symptoms are not settling (Koc and colleagues, 2023). The three worth knowing about yourself are the tendon on the inside of the arch, which changes the shape of the foot, a nerve, which burns or tingles rather than aches, and a stress fracture, which hurts at one point of bone and gets worse the longer you are up. If three months of sensible treatment aimed at the fascia has changed nothing, that is a reason to be reassessed, not to try a fourth stretch.

Do insoles help foot arch pain?

They help some people, with one condition attached, and the guideline is more cautious about them than it used to be. Its 2023 revision says clinicians should not use insoles, ready made or custom fitted, on their own for short-term pain relief, and may use them combined with other treatment to reduce pain and improve function (Koc and colleagues, 2023). The reason is in the evidence it reviewed: four meta-analyses pointed to a small effect or none for insoles used by themselves over the first 3 months, while the results were positive when they were combined with treatment such as stretching. So an insole sits alongside the stretching and loading work rather than replacing it. The NHS self-care advice for pain in the bottom of the foot includes soft insoles or pads along with roomy shoes with a low heel and a soft sole. The same guideline reports that custom and ready made insoles come out much the same, so start with an inexpensive pair, give them a fortnight, and spend the money on a custom device only if a clinician thinks your foot needs something a shop insole cannot do.

Is it safe to run with foot arch pain?

It depends entirely on which problem you have, which is why this page spends so long on telling them apart. Plantar fascia pain is usually managed in practice by keeping running at a level the foot tolerates instead of stopping outright, and the guideline names running itself among the things to assess as a risk factor for developing it (Koc and colleagues, 2023). A suspected stress fracture is the opposite: running and jumping stop until it has been looked at, because bone that is failing under repeated load does not get stronger by being loaded again. A tendon that is losing its hold on the arch also needs assessing before mileage goes back up. Judge any return by the next morning, not by how the run felt, and the pain monitoring model sets out how to do that.

References

NHS. Pain in the bottom of the foot. Page last reviewed 11 September 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/foot-pain/pain-in-the-bottom-of-the-foot/
NHS. Plantar fasciitis. Page last reviewed 14 February 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/plantar-fasciitis/
Koc TA Jr, Bise CG, Neville C, et al. Heel Pain, Plantar Fasciitis: Revision 2023. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2023;53(12):CPG1-CPG39. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2023.0303
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Progressive Collapsing Foot Deformity (Flatfoot). OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/posterior-tibial-tendon-dysfunction/
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Stress Fractures. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/stress-fractures/
Liu X, Hong CC, Reina F, Carrera A, Alcolea-Madera E, Del Vecchio JJ, Dalmau-Pastor M. Navicular and fifth metatarsal base stress fractures: an illustrated anatomical review. Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy. 2026;34(9):3135-3149. https://doi.org/10.1002/ksa.70413
Mallee WH, Weel H, van Dijk CN, van Tulder MW, Kerkhoffs GM, Lin CW. Surgical versus conservative treatment for high-risk stress fractures of the lower leg (anterior tibial cortex, navicular and fifth metatarsal base): a systematic review. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2015;49(6):370-376. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2013-093246
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Diabetic foot problems: prevention and management. NICE guideline NG19. Published 26 August 2015, last updated 11 October 2019. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng19
Diabetes UK. Charcot foot and diabetes. Last reviewed 8 November 2024. https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about-diabetes/looking-after-diabetes/complications/feet/charcot-foot
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics are inappropriate. Drug Safety Update. 22 January 2024. https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/fluoroquinolone-antibiotics-must-now-only-be-prescribed-when-other-commonly-recommended-antibiotics-are-inappropriate

Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-21.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.