A week and a half ago I posted a cry for advice when my plantar fasciitis flared. Help came in 43 comments.
I decided to try them all simultaneously because time was short. I realize that is not a way to test the variables, but when you’re retired you don’t need to worry about such things quite as much.
So here’s the story in the order that seemed to me to be most effective:
Having done all this, I am about 90% pain-free. We’ll see what happens when I try to really walk on it. With two weeks at the hospitalero assignment before hiking, I am hopeful.
Thanks, Everyone!
I decided to try them all simultaneously because time was short. I realize that is not a way to test the variables, but when you’re retired you don’t need to worry about such things quite as much.
So here’s the story in the order that seemed to me to be most effective:
- Deep muscle massage…6 sessions in a week and a half
- Toe scrunching…put a pillowcase on the floor and scrunch it up with your toes until it is all balled under your arch. Repeat. I never got beyond 5 repeats.
- Stretch feet and legs
- A night-time boot/brace to hold the foot in a flexed position
- Rest…I cut back my daily training walks from 5 or 6 miles to 3 or 4
- Cheap shoe insert for plantar fasciitis that I got from Publix
- A Chinese herbal patch worn 8 to 12 hours a day…I’m sick of smelling like camphor
- FasciaDerm. This is an ultra-thin, micro-fiber support system, designed to adhere to the foot, and hopefully providing direct support to the plantar fascia while I walk. I am saving them for after the herbal patches are gone. I bought 12 days’ worth of them.
- Another friends mentioned a brace that goes around the heel and over the foot at the arch. I decided to try the FasciaDerm because it would fit in my boot better.
Having done all this, I am about 90% pain-free. We’ll see what happens when I try to really walk on it. With two weeks at the hospitalero assignment before hiking, I am hopeful.
Thanks, Everyone!
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