Plantar Fasciitis

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Any advice would be welcome.

I damaged my foot in the summer through walking a fair distance in unsupportive shoes. So far, so my own fault. It got worse and worse - pain in my heel that is worse after exercise or when I get up after resting.

Gp confirmed it was plantar fasciitis in October but said it should heel by itself.

It's now march and worse than ever. I'm being referred to a foot clinic but I don't know how long that will take and was wondering if anyone had experience/advice of things that have helped as it now hurts most of the time.

I've tried:

• ibuprofen
• kt tape
• exercises before movement (to warm it up)
• resting and doing very little
• keeping going through the pain (I really pay for this later)

Any ideas?

I bought special shoe insoles from Amazon for £5 and wore them until my foot felt better. Haven't had it since. I also wore Birkenstock sandals in the house as they have an arch in them.

Thank you! Can you remember what the insoles were? I've used general ones that help when walking, but still sore.

These ones. I wore in both shoes even though only one foot was bad.

Thank you! I'll give them a go.

Also, put snug shoes on as you get out of bed. I had some well fitting medium heel rubber soled court shoes which I wore as slippers. It really helps to never ever put bare feet on the floor. Your feet need the containment of a snug shoe.

Ooo you have my sympathy, its agony isn't it! I had my DP rub my heels every night to break down the knots, and what felt like some kind of crunchy scar tissue. That worked and had the added happy side effect of softening my rhino trotters, he used moisturiser when he massaged my feet.
I hope it improves soon

You can buy heel insoles especially for plantar fasciitis from chemists. They cost about £20, but are worth it!

Use a golf ball to work out the knots in the muscles of your arch. Stretch out your calves daily. Wear supportive shoes with a slight heel, nothing totally flat. Insoles may help. Ice religiously every evening for 10 mins or so. If you freeze a small water bottle you can use that as a roller. Acupuncture can also help. It's a bit of a long haul but it will get better if you can religiously do these things.

Another recommendations for the special insoles.

I also bought an arch support sock. Think the insoles and sock cost about £50 but I tried the cheap ones and they weren't as good. I was unlucky enough to finally be rid of it in one foot only to develop it in the other foot a couple weeks later. That was about a year ago and I'm totally fine now.

Fit flops really help. I had this, couldn't put my foot to the floor in the morning, and started wearing the aforementioned footwear. They worked. The other thing that helps oddly, is warm feet at night, so I wear socks to bed, even in summer, if I can feel it coming back.

My DH had this for months and months out of the blue and was in agony. He did all the exercises which made no difference to him. The only thing that worked was wearing the arch support socks from amazon, all day every day. After about 3 weeks of this they got better and he has now been fine not wearing them for about 9 months. HTH x

Mine lasted for 2 years and was absolute agony.

The thing that finally helped mine was wearing Crocs over the summer. I have to be careful still about what shoes I wear especially when walking distances.

My dad has this. He bought Happy Feet insoles from an American website and they were really good.

GP gave me a steroid injection into my heel which helped a lot (the actual injection was quite painful, but over quickly). GP advised me to wear shoes with slight heel so I bought slippers with a small heel to wear about house most of the day. I put cushioned insoles in most of my shoes. I no longer walk about barefoot especially on hard floors.

I suffered PF when teaching exercise, unfortunately there's a lot of speculation as to what causes it and what can fix it but no known magic fix. Short term make sure you're not walking around barefoot at any time (another vote for Fitflops here!) and before you get out of bed in the morning do some light stretch/mobilisation exercises for the calves and foot. I found using the Pedi-roller (from Amazon) beneficial especially at morning and night as well as doing your calf/Achilles stretches. If you can afford it a regular sports massage will help, albeit maybe a bit painful!

Long term you may have a gait issue that will be contributing to the symptoms of your PF and it may involve seeing a podiatrist/sports podiatrist or even a physio who specialises in gait analysis who can give you a training programme to strengthen the areas so as to minimise the risk of it happening again.