Do Plantar Fasciitis Night Splints Work? Pros, Cons & Alternatives
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Night splints are medical devices that keep your foot in the dorsiflexion position, where your toes point upward, toward your shin, overnight. Typically, you wear night splints when you sleep, sometimes when resting. Night splints are sold as a treatment for multiple foot and ankle conditions, including Plantar Fasciitis, Achilles Tendonitis, or foot drop.
If you have Plantar Fasciitis, you might be wondering if it’s worth trying a night splint to relieve your pain. Some people with Plantar Fasciitis find night splints helpful, especially for the typical morning first-out-of-bed pain.
Let’s look at how Plantar Fasciitis night splint works, pros and cons of the device, and what to do to make sure you’re getting quick symptom relief, as well as a long-term resolution.
Plantar Fasciitis is a repetitive stress injury that affects the thick ligament at the bottom of your foot, called plantar fascia. Plantar fascia connects your heel bone to your toe bones, forming a healthy arch of your foot.
A healthy arch works like a spring when you walk, run, or stand, absorbing the impact and supporting the load of your weight. When you run, for example, as much as three times your body weight goes through your arch, as well as plantar fascia, with each step. That’s a lot of load and stress!
That repetitive stress on the plantar fascia can lead to tiny tears in the tissue, along with some inflammation. As these microscopic tears heal, scar tissue forms on the plantar fascia, which is stiffer, more brittle, and weaker than healthy tissue. When your arch and plantar fascia is loaded from your everyday activities, these microtears and scar tissue cause you pain.
Many people with Plantar Fasciitis have their worst pain in the morning, when they take their first steps of the day. Why? It’s because Plantar Fasciitis pain is triggered by not just the amount of load, but the change in load.
When you are on your back (or sitting), your plantar fascia is unloaded. When you take your first steps after a while, that puts a load on your plantar fascia, and this change in load is what causes the typical “first out of bed” pain of Plantar Fasciitis.
Plantar Fasciitis night splints are designed to reduce that change in load between your sleeping position and standing position. When you are on your feet, your plantar fascia is stretched out from the downward pressure of your body weight. Night splints keep your foot and plantar fascia in a position that mimics this loaded position.
With a night splint, when you wake up and take your first few steps of the day, the plantar fascia doesn’t go as abruptly from contracted to stretched; the change in load is smaller. This can reduce your morning Plantar Fasciitis pain and tightness.
Night splints can help with Plantar Fasciitis symptoms, especially the arch and heel pain you feel first thing in the morning.
How much night splints help the morning symptoms seem to vary. Some people find them absolutely indispensable to start their days, while for others, they don’t make much of a difference.
Night splints can reduce morning symptoms of Plantar Fasciitis, but can they cure it? Unfortunately, night splints are not a fundamental cure for Plantar Fasciitis, because they don’t treat the root cause.
Remember, the root cause of Plantar Fasciitis pain are microtears and scar tissue on the plantar fascia. In order to cure Plantar Fasciitis, this problematic tissue has to transform to healthy, flexible, resilient tissue. That is what rebuilds your arch’s ability to support the load of your activities, without getting further damage or causing more pain.
Keeping your plantar fascia in a stretched position overnight can’t induce this tissue transformation. So, while wearing night splints can relieve pain (i.e., reduce the symptoms), it can’t cure Plantar Fasciitis for the long term.
This is why many people end up relying on night splints for a long time; because the problematic tissue is still there, when you stop using night splints, the pain comes back.
Night splints can provide tangible symptom relief, especially the morning, first-out-of-bed pain in the arch or heel. However, they come with a number of negatives:
Night splints are often bulky, and put your foot in a fixed position for the duration of the night. That can be uncomfortable, and reduce the amount and quality of your sleep. And we all know sleep is important for tissue healing and recovery.
By design, night splints can only be used while you are asleep or resting, so they can’t be used to support the arch or relieve pain during activities. Staying active and maintaining (or even increasing) the capacity of your plantar fascia to support the load is key for long-term defense against Plantar Fasciitis flare-ups. Night splints can’t help in this regard.
Because night splints don’t change the problematic tissue or increase your capacity to take on the load, the symptom relief is only temporary. They can be a handy tool to manage your pain, but can’t resolve the fundamental cause of your pain so that you can stay pain-free.
Then what can you do to get at the root cause of your pain? We recommend following the Alleviate Method. It’s a three-pronged approach, based on the gold standard of non-invasive physical therapy treatment:
To reduce your arch and heel pain during the day, wear an arch-support brace. Physical therapists use a technique called low-dye taping to lift the arch and reduce the load on the plantar fascia, so that you can stay active without debilitating pain. A well-designed Plantar Fasciitis brace like our Loft 2 Brace can do the same.
Every day, massage the painful areas to resolve tightness, reduce pain, and promote the growth of healthier, stronger tissue. Physical therapists use a deep tissue massage technique for Plantar Fasciitis (generally called Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization, or IASTM), which you can replicate yourself with our Arch Massager.
If your night splint isn’t working for you, try a few minutes of quick massage with the Arch Massager. It’s a quick, effective way to reduce that morning pain and get your foot ready for the day. And unlike wearing a night splint, massage work actually helps the injured tissue heal.
We haven’t touched on this yet, but this is key: plantar fascia is not the only thing that works to support the load of your body. The entire lower kinetic chain, from the smallest tendons in the foot all the way up to the core hip muscles, works together to support your weight and absorb the impact of your activities.
When there’s weakness or imbalance somewhere in this complex system, that puts extra strain on the plantar fascia, causing pain and increasing the risk of relapses.
So, to resolve Plantar Fasciitis once and for all, make sure to incorporate PT exercises specifically for Plantar Fasciitis. It’s tricky to figure out the best Plantar Fasciitis exercises for where you are on your recovery journey, so we recommend following a structured program like our Plantar Fasciitis Guided Recovery Program!
At this point, you might be wondering if you should ditch your night splint. It’s up to you!
If you are wondering if you should buy a night splint, we’d recommend against it. Instead, wear the Loft 2 Brace or Performance Compression Socks to bed.
If you already have a night splint that makes a significant difference in your morning pain, by all means, keep using it. Just know that the root cause of your pain is still there, so in order to get rid of the recurring pain for good, you should incorporate the three treatment approaches of the Alleviate Method. (Check this out for a more in-depth discussion of what an effective Plantar Fasciitis treatment plan looks like.)
If your night splint isn’t giving you the relief you need, give the Alleviate Method a try. You’ll be surprised how much immediate pain relief you’ll get from the Arch Massager as you wake up, and from the Loft 2 Brace as you go about your day!
Night Splints Provide Temporary Relief: Night splints can reduce morning pain by maintaining the plantar fascia in a stretched position overnight. However, they only offer short-term symptom relief and do not address the root cause of Plantar Fasciitis.
Not a Cure for Plantar Fasciitis: While helpful for morning discomfort, night splints cannot heal the microtears and scar tissue in the plantar fascia, which are the underlying causes of the condition.
Pros and Cons of Night Splints: They can alleviate morning pain but may disrupt sleep due to their bulkiness and fixed position. Additionally, they offer no support during daily activities, limiting their effectiveness.
The Alleviate Method for a Long-Term Solution: A combination of wearing arch braces, massaging the plantar fascia, and strengthening the lower kinetic chain is recommended for long-term relief and healing. Structured physical therapy exercises are crucial for addressing the root cause.
Alleviate was founded by a patient-and-clinician duo to bring the effective chronic pain treatment from physical therapy offices to everyone's home. With our Plantar Fasciitis System 2 that includes the Loft 2 Brace, you can use the Alleviate Method to recover from Plantar Fasciitis at home. No physical therapy appointments required!
Luke Ferdinands, Physical Therapist & Co-Founder
A New Zealand-trained physical therapist with over 20 years of experience, Luke developed the Alleviate Method to bring the gold standard of physical therapy care to everyone's home. Luke leads the development of physical tools and digital physical therapy content, focusing on driving clinical outcomes for people with chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions like Tennis Elbow, Plantar Fasciitis, Runner's Knee, and more.
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