Treatment Options And Crutches

Crutches are the most important part of treating plantar fasciitis that everyone forgets about. Use crutches until the pain goes away. Why? If you fracture or injure a bone, the doctor recommends crutches and says to stay off your feet for four to six weeks until the injury has finished healing itself. Why wouldn't you do the same thing to treat your injured plantar fascia? The ligament is inflamed and possibly torn, why wouldn't you stay off of your foot until the ligament has a chance to heal fully?

Cold Compression Treatment

Treatments that use cold compression on the plantar fascia will not only help reduce pain, but will help reduce inflammation. Cold compression treatment instead of icing the plantar facia will help reduce the inflammation quicker than just ice.

Optimal Treatment With Increased Blood Flow

To achieve optimal blood flow, inflammation whether internal or external needs to be alleviated first. Once inflammation has been targeted start a treatment regimen that starts with light exercises that will help increase blood flow as will heat such as heating pads or hot baths. Devices are also available and are much better options, that are specifically designed to generate optimal blood flow without having to move the injured area, increasing healing time as there is less chance of re-injury if there is limited movement.

Proper Shoes Are Essential For Treatment Success

Wearing shoes that have the proper support is very important in treating plantar fasciitis. The arch of the foot is naturally designed to support itself. When a step is taken, the weight is dispersed evenly on the balls of the feet and the heel. No weight is placed on the arch of the foot, so therefore no support is needed at the arch of the foot. Having cushioning on the heel and balls of the feet are the only support needed, ensuring that the shoes fit properly and aren't too tight.

Wearing slippers around the house will give some added support and cushioning from the hard floors. Although we recommend staying off of your feet completely to help heal your plantar fasciitis, if it is not possible, then relieving the impact each step takes will help the treatment process and alleviate some unnecessary pain.

Exercise To Help Treatment

Providing there is no pain, work on exercises that don't focus on the plantar fascia, but the muscles surrounding it. Success in treating plantar fasciitis is to strengthen the muscles around the injury and this will help prevent the injury from re-occurring. Pain is a sign that injury is happening, proper treatment methods will make sure that with these exercises you're not further damaging anything.

Physical Therapy Aides Treatment

Physical therapy is a great way to get started with the treatment process as it teaches you how to exercise the surrounding muscles and help heal yourself. Always keep in mind that your physical therapist doesn't know if you're in pain unless you say so. Don't let him/her hurt you further. Only you know your body and treating plantar fasciitis won't be effective if you don't speak up. Physical therapy uses exercises to help stimulate increased blood flow to help treat the affected area.

Treatment Success Using Pain Pills

Pain pills should never be used to help get you through the day. Successful treatment of plantar fasciitis will not happen if you don't listen to your body and use the pain as a guideline of what you can and cannot handle. Once your day is finished or winding down and to help you relax, pain pills can be used to help treat the pain. This will ensure that you're not making the problems worse and slowing down your treatment process because you can't feel the pain.

Shockwave Therapy Treatment

Shockwave therapy (ESWT) is an awful idea. Shockwave therapy creates microtrauma to the affected area to promote blood flow and has no purpose to be used on a torn ligament, muscle or tendon. There is absolutely no benefit to using shockwave therapy to help treat plantar fasciitis.

Multiwave Lock System Treatment

Multiwave Lock System (MLS) laser therapy is a giant waste of time. It's recommended to have 6-10 treatments three times a week. Choosing this therapy is not only very costly, but you are allowing your plantar fasciitis to run your life! While the name sounds intriguing, there is absolutely no evidence that it is beneficial in the treatment of plantar fasciitis.

Creams For Treating Symptomatic Issues

There are hundreds of creams on the market that claim to fix all of the problems associated with plantar fasciitis but use them at your own risk. Creams may help treat the pain associated with plantar fasciitis, but like pain relievers, should only be used in periods of down time, as to not mask the pain and injure yourself further. This modality will only help with symptomatic pain, and not treat the problem.

Treatment Options Using Steroid Injections

A single treatment plan isn't going to help all of the cases of plantar fasciitis that exist, but one treatment plan that no one should ever try is the use of steroid injections. The most common type of steroid to help treat plantar fasciitis is called cortisone. Doctors still recommend this as a viable treatment option, but with a little bit of research it's quite evident the destruction that will occur when steroid injections are used. An article in the PubMed archives reports that patients who received steriod injections to treat their symptomatic pain, but not heal the problem, were 6 times more likely to have a ruptured plantar fascia. Plantar fasciitis is a very common and easily curable disease that has turned into an epidemic of bad choices causing long term issues. Once the plantar fascia has been ruptured, the only treatment option is surgery!

Night Splints Do Not Help Treatment

It has been said plenty of times that your plantar fascia will never shrink any shorter than it is supposed to be. Wearing a night splint forces the plantar fascia to stay elongated, and will cause lots of long term negative side effects that will subsequently need treatment. Your plantar fascia is designed to create an arch in your foot, and the night splint treatment stretches that arch away. If there is pain in your plantar fascia it is due to microtearing caused from excessive force being placed on it. Give it a break for a few days and stay off your feet as much as possible, and notice how good your feet will feel without the use of a night splint! Your feet will thank you.

Treatments Using Arch Supports

For exactly the same reason it is recommended to NOT use a night splint, the same rule applies for arch supports and custom orthotics in your shoes to help treat plantar fasciitis. Imagine that the plantar fascia ligament is like a bow and arrow. The string that holds the arc of the bow is your plantar fascia, and arch of your foot is the arc. The string is designed to remain taut to hold the form of the arc. The same rule applies for the plantar fascia. There are no additional supports needed to hold the fascia in place, and definitely no need to force the fascia to be in an arced position. Any type of footwear that puts pressure on the plantar fascia is bad. It itself is not a weight bearing tendon, and applying pressure with every step is causing damage hindering all treatment methods.

Treatments Using Heel Lifts

For exactly the same reason it is recommended to NOT use a night splint, the same rule applies for heel lifts to help treat plantar fasciitis. Your body was designed to walk a specific way. It's referred to as your 'gait'. Using heel lifts will alter the way that you walk and will stop all healing while using them. Most often there are no additional supports needed to hold the fascia in place. Any type of footwear that affects the way you walk is bad. Bad for not only your feet, as it could negatively impact your knees as well as your hips and back.

Orthotics Hinder Treatment

Orthotics are the main reason why plantar fasciitis treatment isn't effective. Every step that's taken while using an orthotic is putting unnecessary stress on your plantar fascia ligament causing it to tear further. It can't be stressed enough that any upward pressure on the plantar fascia is bad. Your plantar fascia is not a ligament that can withstand pressure or force. Proper foot support is important, but not in the arch. Where the support is needed is the metatarsals and the heel where the weight is being placed to aid the treatment process, anywhere else is not necessary.

Treatment Methods By Massage Therapy

Massaging can have good effects and bad ones depending on how it is applied. Think of your ligaments as bones when crutches were being talked about. When you fracture a bone, crutches are used to immobilize the injured area, and when you tear a ligament the same rules are applied, by immobilizing the injured area. Now imagine instead of getting a massage on the injured injured plantar fascia, it's a chiropractor visit with a broken leg. A chiropractor wouldn't touch a broken bone, so why should massage be allowed for an injured ligament? With that being said, having increased blood flow can be achieved through massage therapy treatments which is good for healing but it is very important to know when is the right and wrong time to be working the muscles during a massage. Pain is a pretty good indicator that something is wrong, and it's very important to listen to your body so the treatment process can progress.

Towel Stretch Treatments Are Bad

Towel stretching is one of the worst things that can be done when you have plantar fasciitis. Stretching out the ligament as an effective form of treatment is going to undo all of the healing that's been done. Most find relief when stretching, but the relief is only achieved after the fascia can stretch no further, setting you back to stage one for the healing process. It is so important to remember that when suffering from plantar fasciitis, the best treatment to do is immobilize the area, and towel stretching is doing the opposite, it's only making it worse.

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