Cranial Heel Spur

Warning. This is a highly speculative article on a health topic by a designer, not by a doctor. Consult a doctor if you are looking for medical advice.

Due to wearing to small climbing shoes for years - as many of us climbers do - I feel pain in my heel from time to time. Its a very pressure sensitive spot

located right where the Achilles tendon connects to the heel. After doing some research and consulting some doctors and physical therapists they told me its very likely that I got some kind of a cranial heel spur. More frequently than the cranial version normal people get it on the bottom side of their heel. 

As expected the conservative and reasonable approach would be to get rid of the pressure point by not wearing to small shoes. So I rethought my shoe choices and promised myself to buy a little bit bigger shoes next time. At least for myself it's true that I don't need all of them so tight when warming up or climbing casually in the gym.

For the times I feel I need the small shoes because I want to stand on very small footholds etc. I wanted to try something different. I just got this freshly resoled pair of my LS Solutions back  so I decided to drill a hole right at the spot where I felt the pain with a "Forstner Bohrer". My hope was to get rid of the pressure on the sensible spot while still being able to hook properly and feeling tight in the rest of the heel. The bridge on top with all its seams is still intact and holds everything together firmly. The load is distributed around the edges of the hole now which is of course not as comfortable as the shoe when its intact and you have no heel problems. For me it took away all the pressure on the sensible spot and it was a huge relief.  I already used it for a couple of weeks and there are no signs of wear or dissolving.

I was really suprised how well it worked out, that's why I decided to share it with you. Maybe someone out there can benefit from this solution as well :)
Let me know what you think!