plantar faciitis

[porteryork]

Take a tennis ball and place your foot on it and roll it back and forth. Also sit on the floor and straighten your leg out, grab your toes and pull them toward you. This helps keep the muscles and tendons loose. They also have a contraption you can get to sleep in that helps keep your toes toward you.

Good luck, mine are gone and I am still on my feet alot. I swear by Crocs as well.

 

[what was i thinking]

i have never heard plantar facitis called heel spurs. it is my understanding they are two different things. plantar facitis is in the arch of the foot. i had it very badly, tried therapy and orthotics. my last dr. said she could just cut it from my heel. if it is attatched it can't pull. so sign me up. i had it cut four yrs ago. can go back to work the next day. feels great. only down fall is your arch can fall. mine were already falling so i really didn't care the pain was so bad i couldn't walk some days.

 

[reallemons1]

I had it in one foot for over a year. I understand your pain. I had everything done, supports, cortizone shots, anti inflamatorys, physical therapy, night splint, stablizer boot, everything but surgery. Nothing really helped. The pain was awfull. I finally gave up. Then my tendon ruptured and it healed. I have no problem now. I hope you find a cure soon.

 

[FunnyFarmer]

I had this a few years ago and it's nasty. My GP sent me to a medical supply store to get the heavy-duty orthotic insoles--they were about $25 bucks. (No prescription--that's just where she said to get them.) I switched them between a couple of different pairs of shoes and they helped a lot. After two or three months of wearing them all the time and no going barefoot (which was a pain in the summer!) the pain was completely gone and I didn't need them anymore.

I haven't had a bad case again but a couple of times since then I've started to get some heel pain and have put the insoles back in my shoes for a couple of weeks, and it went away. They're worth their weight in gold.

 

[gapeachy]

it is good to know that I am not the only person with this.....

 

[allaboutdemchicks]

Quote:
Yep....my two cents...went to a Podiatrist and he fitted me with the insoles. But he told me it's inflamation of the tendon. No No barefooten, even inside. My sister makes fun of me because I will not wear sandles in the summer...until she suffered from the same thing. Get a stiff insole that will not bend. Take a NSAID like ibuprofen for a couple weeks.

Heel spurs are NOT plantars faciitis. It just hurts like your walking on a spur!!

 

[chickenannie]

I had this for 8 years!!! Went through everything with orthotics, etc trying to make it better. I finally threw out the orthotics because I felt like they made me walk funny and threw my entire posture out of whack along with other side effects.

I finally cured it by stretching out every single morning before I got out of bed (before I even took one single step each morning -- i just slid to the floor out of my bed and stretched first. It took a long time, but it works! You have to be patient because the improvement is incremental. HEre's the stretches I did:

The best stretch is to sit with one foot flat on the floor. Put the other ankle across your knee (say right foot on floor, left ankle across right knee. Then with your left hand pull your left foot's toes back for 10 seconds. Be gentle but get a good stretch. This stretches both the calf muscle and the arch ligament. Do 10 times each ankle. You can do this 2 or three times a day. It works great! better than all the other stretches in my experience.

Another helpful thing is if you lose weight -- being overweight puts a lot more pressure on that arch.

From what I've heard the shot in the heel is only temporary relief. Same with ibuprofen.

Oh and I wear good shoes with good arches (like Dansko shoes) or sneakers. A lot of shoes are crap now, with no insole or support whatsoever.

Heel spurs are not the problem. they are not what causes you pain. They are just the result of plantar fasciitis -- the bone is building up calcium to try to lengthen the arch ligament which is torn. I ready a study that 50% of people have bone spurs but only a small percentage of them have heel pain.

Good luck! It's a common problem.

 

[greyfields]

I have only seen the commercial on TV for it which looks like it was made in 1976. It sounded all very scary to me.

 

[piecemaker]

Quote:
Ok I sat on the floor I can reach my knees. My toes appear to be in a different zip code from my hands because there is no way they are going to meet in this position.

Now someone PLEASE get me off the floor

I understand your pain I to have been there too. Seems to have gone away with anti inflammatories

 

[chickenannie]

Quote:
Ok I sat on the floor I can reach my knees. My toes appear to be in a different zip code from my hands because there is no way they are going to meet in this position.

Now someone PLEASE get me off the floor

I understand your pain I to have been there too. Seems to have gone away with anti inflammatories

Do just a tiny bit at a time. If you haven't stretched much, you'll take a while to get "loose". Be patient. Keep going.