I’ve had plantar fasciitis in varying degrees of severity for a year now, usually just stretching and bearing it. I’d like to finally get rid of it once and for all, so I bought a night splint.
It is woefully uncomfortable and for the third night in a row, I’ve tossed and turned with it on and eventually ripped it off before falling asleep.
Are there any other long term solutions other than the night splint? Stretching and good insoles in my shoes have helped, and I’m not in shooting pain in the mornings like others, but it’s lingering and always there.
Yup! I like his gel sports ones in all of my shoes. The pain is barely there, slightly lingering, because I do have insoles and stretch but I can’t seem to ever really get rid of the pain.
Oddly enough, I lost 30 pounds 7 months ago (I’ve now got an excellent BMI, so weight isn’t the problem) and while overall I feel and look great and my knee and hip pain vanished, my plantar fasciitis issue remains exactly the same.
Ice and massage your arch with a golf ball or small bottle/baby food jar. Or freeze a plastic bottle of water and roll the arch with that.
Stretch your calves. Tight calves are the most common cause.
Try to wear shoes/slippers with the arch support orthotic in at all times. I love being barefoot, but forcing myself to wear slippers with orthotics all the time at home finally helped.
Do you mean the massaging gel sport insoles? The custom orthotic is a different deal altogether. You stand on a machine that measures your feet, and it tells you which orthotic to get, and they cost about $50.
I tried Dr. Scholl’s arch supporting inserts, and have gone from every morning pain to none. Not even expensive “custom” line they have, but the 15 dollar kind.
This and gel inserts for my non-everyday shoes have kept me pain free for over a year.
I had very painful PF in both feet a few years ago. X-rays showed big heel spurs and the first doctor I went to wanted to do surgery.
I used those night splints for about six weeks. They were incredibly uncomfortable (painful!) but I guess they helped. I also underwent physical therapy 1x week for about 10 weeks, and stretched every day. The biggest factor was these hard prescription shoe inserts which I still wear two and a half years later.
I also got a less expensive set of shoe inserts at a sports/runner’s store. They are hard plastic (not gel pads) and provide a lot of arch support. They are fantastic.
I agree with all the posts about insoles and such. I like the Dr. Scholl’s Gel inserts.
If you can manage it, every night as you are falling asleep practice flexing your feet back toward you, in a similar manner to what the splint would do. If you wake up in the night, flex your feet until you fall back to sleep. Before you get out of bed in the morning flex. I found that I had been curling my feet in my sleep, but by doing these exercises whenever I was in bed and awake, I sort of trained myself to flex in my sleep instead of curling my feet.
And definitely never go bare- or sock-footed. Always have at least some sort of support. It’s a bummer but it works. I had a lot of luck with my Dansko clogs. I could slip them off when sitting on the sofa and then easily slip them on anytime I was on my feet.
I am a marathon runner and have had PF in varying degrees of ouch for a year and a half. I have tried everything, including cortisone shots. After getting to the point where I couldn’t run at all last October, I had a “sonic boom” treatment on my left foot (it apparently is the same technology they use to break up kidney stones). Even with my foot numbed, it wasn’t a very pleasant procedure. The good news, however, was that it worked. The bad news was that it was $1,200 and not covered by insurance so I couldn’t get my right foot done too.
But here’s good news again! About a month ago, my right foot went from being tolerable running to intolerable so I inquired about getting the procedure, thinking maybe the cost had gone down over the last year. They actually have something called Well Wave treatment which uses the same technology as the sonic boom but it’s less intense and spread out over 3 to 5 sessions at $89 per session. I have had 4 sessions so far and am back to running (and am able to walk as well).
Just something to consider if the other options don’t help!
I had it pretty bad about four years ago, ruined most of a flag football season for me. I didn’t have a boot or inserts or anything, just stretched the shit out of it until eventually it was gone. The crippling pain lasted a month. After that it was tolerable for another few months and then nothing.
I had a case so bad I couldn’t walk. Podiatrist said it would take six months to heal. An acupuncturist healed it in 4 (four) sessions. I also have heel spurs, but they don’t hurt or cause any problems at all.
I know someone who suffered awfully with this condition, who swears the above was life saving advice for her. Maybe give it a try?
It’s really just keeping a small bottle of water in your freezer and taking it out every night while eating dinner, and spending 15 mins rolling over it with the foot.
I had this or something similar 2.5 years back. Go see a doctor. I got prescribed anti-inflamatories and exercises. They worked a treat. The exercises were very simple and very effective: walk up steps on the front of your feet (balls forwards) only, rolling feet over bottles, and to stand on a step with only the balls of your feet forwards on the step and pump up and down. The anti-inflammatories helped the muscle recover. Another thing was that I had a habit of being shoeless at home. This was a bad move for me.
I had it pretty bad about a year or so ago. What I did was:
-wore orthotics all the time. My business neighbor was an orthotist and he so kindly hooked me up with some cheap orthotics for my tennis shoes for free- they helped a lot.
-wore my tennis shoes (with orthotics) all the time. No more slippers, flats, cute boots, heels, not even barefoot- nothing but tennies.
-took a lot of ibuprofen. Make sure that it’s not contraindicated for your particular health conditions, if any, but ibuprofen every 4 to 6 hours for several weeks can really make a difference with inflammatory processes like PF.
-frozen bottles of water rolled with the arch several times a day.
-spelled out the alphabet with my toes several times a day.
Now I can wear all kinds of shoes and even go barefoot again, and I have no residual pain from the PF. Pretty amazing, considering that at the time, I couldn’t even take one step without accompanying it with “ow!” It will go away with diligence, but it does take time.
I had a significant PF issue about 2 years ago, and this was amazingly helpful. Also, those Skechers ShapeUp shoes? I tried a pair on as a lark in a store, and almost cried from the immediate pain relief. I bought a pair and wore them as my shoes as much as possible for about a month, and haven’t had any major problems sense (occasionally I’ll have a twinge of an ache, but nothing like the pain I was having).
I’ve had it off and on for the past ten years or so. Shoes helped a bit, Keen shoes in particular kept it at bay for a long time. I had cortisone injections in one of my feet, which is very painful and of dubious benefit. Then it flared up to where nothing was working. I went to that Goodfeet place, which ended up costing me $400 and did nothing. I finally went to a podiatrist again and he had custom inserts made for me. $350, but it’s taken care of the problem. The reason I put off going again was that the first one I went to was an idiot. I find that if I don’t go out and walk nearly every day, I’ll start to get cramps in my feet, so it’s an incentive to get some exercise.