What is Plantar Fasciitis?

Plantar Fasciitis is an injury to the fascia at the bottom on the foot. It extends from the heel, all the way to the toes. You know that it’s plantar fasciitis when it’s chronic pain that doesn’t go away easily. When you first get up in the morning is when you typically have the most pain. Most of the pain is in the heel, but it can be all throughout the foot.

How Does it Develop?

Plantar fasciitis usually develops over time with repetitive strain. It can also be the result of poor foot ware, such as over protection. It can also be caused by being sedentary, or doing too much activity. A lot of us also have had poorly conditioned feet from child hood. We wear shoes at our formative years of hours a day, every day, which dramatically effects how our feet develop. Our feet are supposed to develop by interacting with a wide variety of terrains, such as grass, rocks, and hills. Instead, everything is flat.

How to Heal Plantar Fasciitis

We want to make sure to desensitize and restore the tissues through a variety of practices. Also, we want to take in to account environmental factors. Desensitization refers to reducing the pain, and getting your foot used to feeling normal again. Restoring is mobility work, and strengthening the area to restore function. The environmental factors are things that could be inhibiting, or accelerating your recovery.

Practices

Massage-

Plantar fascia massage is important to reduce pain. This can be done manually by your self with a variety of tools. You can use a golf ball, but if that’s too much, use a softer ball. Press in to the painful areas, and breathe until there’s no more pain. Also, do it all around the foot even if there is no pain because it will increase function of the rest of the foot.

Foam rolling-

There are many muscles that influence the plantar fascia. The main ones being in the calf area. The calf area can be reached easily by a foam roller. You can use a rumble roller, which is a roller coated in ridges for deep tissue work. If that’s too much, you can. use a softer roller. Find any pain point and stay there until the pain is gone. You can also roll your calf up and down the roller.

Infrared light therapy-

Infrared light therapy can be very healing for a variety of injuries, including plantar fasciitis. This paper shows how red light therapy works to make mitochondria to work more efficiently, and boost anti inflammatory compounds, along with antioxidants to speed healing. In this study, athletes were shown to have much faster recovery times for injuries with infrared light therapy.

PEMF-

PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field therapy) has also been shown to be very beneficial for injuries. PEMF has been shown to increase stem cell mobilization and other growth factors for healing.

Walking-

People will tell you not to walk with plantar fasciitis, this is a mistake. The body requires movement in order to heal itself. Walking can strengthen and regenerate the fascia in a gentle way. Of course, listen to your body and don’t over do it.

Orthotics-

Orthotics have their place, but should not be used as a long term solution. If you are in too much pain, or have to be on your feet a lot even with plantar fasciitis, orthotics can be great. The problem though is that these do the work for your feet, and the muscles in the feet will atrophy over time with they don’t do the work they’re supposed to.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)

HBOT uses pressurized oxygen to heal the body. This study shows how HBOT can speed the recovery of soft tissue injuries. Another study showing how HBOT can regenerate muscle tissue and accelerate healing.