Plantar Fasciitis
Oh my goodness, what an annoying injury this is. This is my story of how I have been able to improve my plantar fasciitis.
What is Plantar Fasciitis?
Plantar fasciitis causes pain in the bottom of the heel. The plantar fascia is a thick, weblike ligament that connects your heel to the front of your foot. It acts as a shock absorber and supports the arch of your foot, helping you walk.
Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common orthopedic complaints. Your plantar fascia ligaments experience a lot of wear and tear in your daily life. Too much pressure on your feet can damage or tear the ligaments. The plantar fascia becomes inflamed, and the inflammation causes heel pain and stiffness.
How did it start and how its going?
A week before Christmas 2020, my wife and I caught COVID. Thankfully the children were not affected by COVID. I therefore had 3 weeks off running. As a keen runner, as soon as I was able to get out running, I did. on the 4th January 2021, I started a comeback of 5k a day. Looking back on this, it wasn’t the best thing to do. However, at the time, 5k a day didn’t seem that excessive.
After a week of 5k a day, I went to 10ks and then normal training resumed. One morning when I walked the kids to school, I felt a slight pain in my left heel. I just thought that my ankle was tight. Did a few stretches but nothing too much, and carried on as normal.
Then at the end of February, we organised a Local Lads 5k Time Trial setting off in 30-45 second intervals. I wore Adidas Adizero Adios 5 racing flats. As soon as I finished, I could feel the pain in my heel more than on that walk to school with the children. The thought of “oh well, just have a week off” came to mind. So I did then back into training in April.
I competed in the Podium 5k on the 10th April, and got a PB but didn’t wear the racing flats, I wore Adidas Adizero Adios Pro (Carbon). On the Monday after the race I felt the heel pain more. As I did some research, I found that tight calves could be the issue. I booked in to see a physio (£55) recommended by Sean. The physio caused a lot of pain and some good advice for stretching the calves but the pain in the heel remained.
At the end of April, I did a speed session in Adidas Boston 8, and the pain was unbearable when I was home. I couldn’t walk and started to get worried.
I was recommended the Strassbourg sock (£10) to wear at night. Pain started to ease but not to a point of being able to put pressure on my foot. I was starting to get impatient, as most injured runners do. I then went into full blown research and purchase gadget mode.
The Strassbourg sock, at first, was being worn wrong. I was pulling it so my foot would fully stretch. Later I would find that all I needed to do was to get it into a dorsal flex position and not fully stretch my foot. Its designed to keep the foot in dorsal flex position during the night.
I then bought a different support (£20.89) to wear at night which ended up hurting my foot to a point of a small bruise appearing on the top of my foot. This brace went to the back of the cupboard.
In May, I bought some Pro II Plantar Series Insoles (£7.74) that did assist with taking the pressure off the heel at first, but then slowly started to flatten. Running with these insole did feel ok, however, I didn’t run again after that as the pain was too much.
When I had to go into Manchester for work, I nipped into Up and Running on Deansgate and bough a little green spiky golf ball. I used this a lot while sat at my desk and found that it started to help ease the pain.
Like a lot of the gadgets and treatments I’ve used, they all started help at first. Yet my impatience kept getting the best of me and continued to look for alternatives. Back onto Amazon looking at more things to help. Now onto arch support brace (£13.99), which slip on and basically bring up the heel up off the floor. These had to be worn over socks as they rubbed my feet and caused redness.
A YouTube video I found explained some exercises that could help, so I started to do these in the morning and at night. With these exercises, again, the pain started to ease. However, I had a day at the zoo on my feet and the pain came back with a vengeance. This prompted me to order some Oofos (£50).
I wore the Oofos in the house for around a week or two. Then I felt it was time to try a run. 10 x 1min on/off. Once home from the run, I iced by foot. The day after I spent the day on my feet as we had a family BBQ. The next day, I did 10 x 2min on/off and the pain returned in my heel. I used a massage gun to loosen my calf and my underfoot.
Even though I always made progress with my foot, I never persisted with one treatment (as you can see from the above). I looked around for a podiatrist that was well recommended. First name that came up was Steve Lyons. He is very well recommended and has previously worked for Manchester United and England. I booked an appointment for the end of June.
Sean mentioned in a WhatsApp group that the Nike ZoomX Invincible trainers are classed as “injury prevention” trainers, but the price was putting me off.
In the meantime, I tried to find a podiatrist a little cheaper that I would be able to try some ideas out with and actually be diagnosed with the PT. I went to see Andrea at Athlete Matters. This was a 15min appointment (£15) which proved to be worth it.
Andrea started by speaking to me about my running which pointed the cause to coming back to running from COVID. Which started to make sense. Then Andrea looked at my running trainers and my walking style. After this I showed her my bag of tricks which I used to treat the PT. She then went through what to stop using and how she can help amend the insoles. Andrea put some strong adhesive padding under the arch of each of the soles. These didn’t feel comfortable at first but I started to get used to them. She also recommended that Shockwave Therapy maybe a suitable option.
I then had a little walk with the amended insoles the following day. I could feel that the heel was raised and it indeed was assisting in heeling (pun intended) the injury. From then on, I iced my foot 3 times a day for a week or so. As well as rolling my foot with the green spiky ball.
While I was on Facebook, I found a little gadget called the PlantarCure (£49) machine which is a small Shockwave Therapy machine and has had some good reviews. I struggled to find some (what looked like) genuine reviews. They all seemed to be posted by the PlantarCure company. Facebook page was locked so there was no way to see comments from users. With an appointment booked with Steve Lyons on the horizon, I thought this could be worth a punt. PlantarCure machine ORDERED!
PlantarCure machine arrived the same day I had a rather large bill for my car. I then had to cancel the Steve Lyons appointment, which was at the cost of £235 for an hour appointment, which was just less than the cost of car repairs. With the appointment cancelled, the PlantarCure machine was the remaining option to stick with.
Along with the PlantarCure machine being used, I used the massage gun every other night and wore the Strassbourg sock at night.
With a little bit of birthday money left, I ordered the Nike ZoomX Invincible (£160). These arrived on 1st July. Couldn’t resist a run in these. I did 10 x 1min on/off. As well as riding to Sale Sizzler number 2. 3rd July was 11 x 1min and then the 5th was 12 x 1min on/off. My foot was feeling great with hardly any pain at all.
I am hoping that my foot will improve as well as being able to go on a few runs and get up to 10k and beyond.
Fingers crossed.