There's a shot for that
I had it in both heels 20 years ago, in my early 40's. The doc cured me in a week with a simple exercise:
Stand with both feet on the stairs, top step, bottom step, it doesn't matter (just don't fall down the stairs!), with only the balls of your feet and toes on the step. Let your heels drop down as far as they can go, giving yourself a good stretch in the back of your calves. Hold for a few seconds. Now, raise yourself up all the way on the balls of your feet and hold for a few seconds. That's one rep. Do three sets of 10 reps, twice a day. I did that and was feeling better in a day and was all better in a week, and it's never come back. Good luck!
I was having a round of that last winter. I got some rocker bottom shoes that helped and some sandles with a real high arch support. When I trashed my knee, they had me doing ankle pumps. I would do about 100 ankle pumps every hour. When I got back on my feet 10 weeks later, I didn't have any plantar faschitas pain. I still do a lot of ankle pumps during the day. It seems to help my knee too. I have done so many leg lifts in PT with my left leg, the bad knee, that I can do 50% more weight on that leg on the leg machine at the gym than the right leg.
First thing
Go to a foot doctor, if you are hurting as bad as you say, you doctor should have made a referral.
Step 2
Get some high quality shoe inserts. NOT drug store quality. Go to a hiking place or specialty shoe store. I use superfeet, but there are other good brands as well. Make sure to have someone properly fit you. If they just ask you what size you are, they are not fitting you.
I use a size 13, and cut the length down to a 10.5. These should run about 30 to 40 bucks. The $300 custom orthotics are no better than these really.
Step 3
By now you should have seen the foot doc. He should have given you stretching exercises. DO THE EXERCISES! As often as possible. This is not a quick fix. You are are looking at a year to get to 100 percent. If you don't do them, you are going to be fighting with you feet for the rest of your life.
Step 4
If you are built like me, (to much desk time), losing some weight does wonders for your feet, knees and back.
Oh and doing anything barefoot is likely a thing of the past..... You likely know that already.
I had the worst case of plantar fasciitis the pediatrist had seen in his 30 year career. When he asked me how long my feet have been hurting, I responded with "my entire life".
I had the same thing for about 3 years. Funny thing is that when it was all said and done my shoe size increased 1 to 1-1/2 sizes. All I could figure is that age was causing things to lose their elasticity and tension. I tried to ignore it for awhile and then had shots. I then read that the shots can actually do more harm than good and they provided very little temporary relief; something the studies verified.
What did work for me was sleeping with a brace that kept my foot at a 90 deg angle. What is happening with this is that if your foot becomes unflexed (points down) at night the muscles/tendonw/ligaments (whatever part it is) partially heals in that position and then when you re-flex your foot in the morning you re-tear everything again. So sleep with a brace, then before you get out of bed warm up your foot with some flexing exercise - I use to do presses against the foot of the bed. Of course the bladder will make this a very short exercise;-) I also found narrower shoes gave me better support around the heel. My feet have always been a little narrow but their lengthening have made them more narrow, relatively. May not be a technically correct explanation but is my layperson explanation of what I understood the dynamics to be.
It just takes time. I still have a little pain once in a while depending on what shoes I wore all day the day before. Good luck and I empathize with you.
I have had this many times and found a great treatment that will help . Put a golf ball in the freezer and every night roll it on the bottom of your heal. It will do wonders. It pretty much cured mine.
Whatever treatment route you pursue, make sure that Money Penny knows that part of the Dr.s prescription requires her to rub your feet and feed you grapes.... 😛
Well everyone has chimed in on this and you're not alone. I brought it up a few years ago when I was first diagnosed as it felt like a real dirty trick to pull on a Land Surveyor!!
1) Exercise. There is a calf stretching exercise that actually works; Stand facing the wall, put your good foot out front and bending that leg, pushing on the wall with your hands, keeping your bad foot/leg stretched out behind you bend the front knee slowly to the floor feeling your calk stretch.
2) Wear the orthos. get several pair for different shoes. Off the shelf works for me.
3) Wear the boot nightly until the pain is gone.
Eventual it will heal, temporarily, but you're going to be wearing Ortho's forever. This will not go away and you have to beware of your shoes, arch supports etc. Even going barefoot will make it worse!!
At least you can make the pain go away, eventually, and if you're careful you can prevent it from reoccurring, because it will if you don't change your footwear and do your stretching exercises.
Dtp
foot exercises
The doc has me doing a series of range of motion stretches and exercises. They seem to help. The most unique (and successful in my opinion) is acting like you're writing the letters of the alphabet with your toes and foot, with several reps a few time daily.
> I have had this many times and found a great treatment that will help . Put a golf ball in the freezer and every night roll it on the bottom of your heal. It will do wonders. It pretty much cured mine.
Same thing works with a frozen water bottle
Wow
Lot of good suggestions and advice here.
Swmbo has this pain along with chronic neck and shoulder pain.
She started using one of these Tiger Tales after our boy won a gift certificate at runner's store last summer in a local race.
She uses it on her back, neck and foot and gives it a thumbs up.
There is a boy on one of our soccer teams who has leg muscle aches and his mother who is a nurse uses a rolling pin on his legs between games at tournaments. She is a RN.
http://www.tigertailusa.com/blogs/secret-of-the-pros
I get it really bad every year at the start of football season when I start refereeing again. Lots of advil and stretching. Hurt like He##.
Had a fellow referee who was in good shape around the age of 55. Tore his completely on the field during a game. Apparently he was told that is the body's normal response and it will heal itself, which it did for him and he is back to logging miles every day. But it looked like someone took a bat to the back of his leg for when it happened.
Man...been there DOIN' that.
I was having the same issue lately. I didn't do any of the things suggested above which seem to treat the symptoms rather than the cure (some of the treatments suggested seem pretty radical). I went to my chiropractor (the "back claker" as I affectionately call him). He found that the multitude of bones in my foot were misaligned, primarily my heel and foot bones. All it took was a couple of sessions of pulling, snapping and massaging from my hip bone, knees, ankles, heels, and out my toes to fix it. $80 later everything's working just fine now.
>The pain can be excruciating. I have to hop on one foot when I wake up in the morning to get to the pisser
I've described it as feeling like someone used a four pound hammer to drive a PK nail into my heel. :-O
I'll give another vote for GOING TO THE DOCTOR. Max or long term doses of NSAIdS are extremely hard on your digestive tract and other systems. I've had 16 rounds with the cut and paste guys and it's no fun. I cannot take a single dose of advil or like drugs without bleeding. You don't want to be there...
> I have significantly decreased kidney function as a result of taking too much of things like Advil. My doctor has strongly recommended I take Only Tylenol.....
That's terrible because Tylenol is horrible on the liver. Irreparable liver damage can be caused in one setting with Tylenol and alcohol.
This is COMPLETELY off the subject, but that picture looks like Russell Wilson acting as Tiger Woods. I got a pretty good laugh from that!!!
I have found that the best pain killer is a BoilerMaker
2oz favorite whiskey in tall glass, fill remainder with cold beer of choice, drink until you are sastified.
Does less damage than Aspirin or Tylenol or Hydro....
:beer:
