Heel Pain with walking & running

Question
HI,

I have a weird problem with pain in my left heel.  The pain is right on the back / bottom of my heel (if I sit down, streach my leg out with my toes pointin up (so my leg and foot are in a V shape) and touch the heel of my foot down to the ground, the spot my heel touches the ground is where it hurts.

It hurts after walking for quite a while.  But hurts almost right away when running, then for quite a while afterwords (up to a day or so).  I have custom orthodics and everyone that has looked at them (sports medicine, poditrists, chiro, shoe stores) have all said they are very good.

The pain is so bad that it is very hard for me to run very far at all.  I have been working up to being able to run more, and have lots a lot of weight.  I have some arthritic problems in my knees, and have been working very hard to overcome / work around these issues so I can run more.  I am making progress, but this "pain in the heel" problems keeps comming up.

I had been wearing a pair off SL-2 new balance running shoes.  Today, I went out and got a new pair of acis running shoes.  I tied the laces very tight to help reduce the amount of movement in my heel area.  It did help some and the pain did not seem quite as bad after a fairly brisk 3 mile walk tonight, but I did not run again toniht, still a bit sore from earlier and last night.

I suspect some of the problem may have been / is due to my heal being lose in my shoe.  It is able to be held much more tightly in place with the new acis shoes, than it was in the new balance.  The heel was pretty sloppy in the new balance.  (meaning my heal would move around a lot when I walked).

I think that have my heal held in place better with the new acis, is helping some, but there is still pain.

I have had pain in this heel on and off throughout my life.  Some times the area on my here were it hurts seems to get callased up a bit.

Poditrists, chiropractors, doctors, etc, have not been able to offer a solution to make this pain stop.  I have tried a heel cup, but it was extremely uncomfortable.  Nor have they been able to tell me what caused the pain.

I have read that a lot of runners have problems with heel pain, but, based on what I read online I am unable to tell if the pain I am having is the same as runners describe.

Can you think of either what might be causing this problem or some other things I can try that are not invasive?

(I doctor suggested just cutting away a huge part of my heel incase there was some type of plantar wort or clump of wbc's or something.  I consider this a last last resort as I am sure healing would be long, and I am not confident that it would solve the problem, I kind of suspect it is related to tendon connections or something)

I applogize for the complexity of my question.  It is just so frustrating not know what is causing this pain and only having seen limited sucess with treating it.

Answer
Hi Jamie
It very likley could be a bone spur which may cause pain and tenderness at the base of the calcaneus bone.This is also associated with with chronic plantar  fasciitis.Your right about the connection point where the achilles tendon inserts.I would recomend when you start out,that you stop after about 10 minutes and stretch out the calf and achilles tendon and also when you finish the workout.Also stretch out the covering of your foot by kneeling down with your toes facing front.You will feel it stretch in the facia which is the covering of the bottom of th feet.Also ice your heal and bottom of foot for 15 minutes after all workouts and add 500mg of vit c to your 3 meals a day to enhance recovery of tendons,cells.tissues.Give this program  a week and a half and get back to me and see how it is working for you Jamie and then we will pick it up from there.If you have other questions just get in touch.

All the best

John