If you have ever had plantar fasciitis, you know how excruciatingly painful it can be. I tried to ignore the pain of it for weeks, stretching after workouts and trying to come to terms with the fact that it might never go away. I spoke to another group fitness instructor who told me she had it for a year.
When I asked her how she got rid of it, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “it finally burned itself out, I guess”. I thought I might have to live this way indefinitely until a woman walked into my class and mentioned that she had had plantar fasciitis. We started talking about it and she told me that when she had plantar fasciitis, it was so bad that she had to spend a trip to NY city in a wheel chair. She went to multiple doctors about the condition, got cortisone injections and went to one doctor who wanted to cut the fascia. Her situation changed when she saw a therapist who told her she just needed to stretch it back out. Duh, it was like an epiphany. Something is too tight in the bottom of the foot, and pulling on the heel. I’ve been teaching group exercise classes for over 20 years, and this is a concept I have a lot of experience with. 20 years of working my body hard has left me with just about every muscle strained at one time or another, and I’ve been pretty successful at fixing them. It all seemed suddenly clear, and I knew how to fix it.
Here’s what I did:
I didn’t stop working out. That is too hard for me. However, I did buy new sneakers. Arch support is very important to prevent plantar fasciitis and I think the fact that my sneakers were a little on the worn out side may have actually been the cause of my getting plantar fasciitis in the first place. I also bought inserts for my sneakers. They weren’t expensive orthopaedic arch supports. I tried a couple of different brands and actually liked the profoot brand that I still buy at Walmart. They cost about $5.00.
I bought a foot brace. I don’t like the boots that keep your foot flexed. They are hard to sleep in and they stretch the Achilles more than the arch in the bottom of the foot. The foot brace I bought is only $15.00 at Footsmart. Here’s the link. This is the best arch support you can buy for plantar fasciitis, and I’ll tell you why. You put the elastic strap on the arch of your foot while you sleep, and the pull is distributed around the ankle and not on the top of the foot (which cuts off circulation) like in some other braces. When you sleep, people have a tendency to point their feet. This causes the arch to shorten. That means that any work you’ve done to stretch the arch during the day will be undone while you sleep at night. With this brace, the elastic keeps pulling up on the arch whether you point your foot or flex it. It keeps the arch in a lengthened state. It’s like stretching for 8 hours and not even knowing it, because you’re asleep. It is essential that you wear this to bed every night, even for a week after no more signs of the plantar fasciitis. It is also helpful to wear it around during the day if possible. Just don’t pull the elastic too tight when you put it on, because it will pull on your arch much more than you realize at first.
In addition to wearing this foot brace every night, you need to wear shoes all the time until the problem is solved. I wear Birkenstocks around the house. The original Birkenstock foot bed has excellent arch support and will mold to the shape of your foot. Just wearing a pair of Birkenstocks is like receiving a foot massage. I kept my Birkenstocks right next to my bed so that when I work up in the morning, I could just slip them on. If you don’t have Birkenstocks, wear the shoes that you own with the best arch support around the house, at least until a week after the problem is gone. Don’t walk in bare feet at all. Keep your shoes next to the bed so the moment you get up until the moment you go to sleep, the arch is constantly supported. Don’t give it any excuse to tighten back up.
Probably the most important thing you have to do to cure your plantar fasciitis is to massage the arch and heel of your foot every day, ESPECIALLY right after you’ve worked out. I have a shiatsu massager. This is two little electrical ball type things that turn and are meant to work on either side of your neck. I pushed my foot down on one of these balls every day and always used it immediately following a work out. Do this for at least 15 minutes. This was very painful, but if you want to get rid of the plantar fasciitis, you have to just suck it up. After a while, the pain starts to fade. If you don’t have a shiatsu massager, you can also do this with a tennis or similar ball. It will be more work for you because you’ll have to move your leg around and push down to get a deep massage, but you need to do this. This is key to healing.
Doing these things cured my plantar fasciitis completely within about 2 weeks. Every once in a while, I start to get tightness in the same spot which tells me it’s time for new sneakers. I never stopped using the arch supports. If the symptoms start to return, just go back to doing the above for a few days, until they’re gone. Stop the progression early by getting right on it, and change your sneakers often. I buy new sneakers every 3 to 4 months, and I believe this is the best investment I can make for my legs, considering how often I work out.
Play hard and good Luck!
