NY Times: At last - a cure for plantar fasciitis? Is this simple exercise the key?

Has anyone had luck with the night splints?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001B5JVIA?cache=492a68dcb667cb2e533e1cf17cf0d443&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1411056425&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Like this?

I concur to a large extent. Had nasty PF for a year, and it cleared up with a few sessions of deep massage focused on the piriformis/hip area. Now I just do self-massage in this area and yoga stretching if there is any start of foot pain. For short-term relief, deep work on the soleus and tibialis, along with ankle mobility rotations is very effective (and can be performed during runs).

a new angle for thought wrote:

My belief is that Plantar Fasciitis is only a SYMPTOM of the actual injury and is caused by a tightening of the Flexor digitorum brevis. That muscle is innervated by nerves that come from the sciatic nerve which is derived from spinal nerves L4-S3.

The brain believes that there is being damage done somewhere by the activity of running and a simple way for it to make you STOP is pain in the foot. My belief is that the problem is closer to the spinal nerves and lower back than the foot and that is why NO treatment has ever been found that cures Plantar Fasciitis.

Thermos wrote:

Has anyone had luck with the night splints?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001B5JVIA?cache=492a68dcb667cb2e533e1cf17cf0d443&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1411056425&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Like this?

Yep. Not the most comfortable but better than the sock.

Lighter shoes w/custom orthotics, Vibrams and strengthening exercises got rid of mine.

I think too, once you get PF you have to not only treat the symptom, but you have to prevent what is causing or aggravating it.

Yes, but it did not work for me. What worked for me was the strassburg sock. The sock got about 75% of the pain. I still had to run with the Features planter sleeve during hard runs. I also avoided any downhills. What is really working now is doing squats and other core stuff.

J.R. wrote:

dsrunner wrote:

the strengthening aspect here is the far more important component I believe

I agree with this.

The eccentric stretching part of the exercise is harmful and is likely to cause the injury to get worse.

The only benefit, if any, would be strengthening, which is better done without the negative weight bearing eccentrics.

This says the polar opposite of what you just said.

We always had success with massage/roll your sole over a very used tennis ball for 3 minutes and then ice for 3 minutes. Then repeat.

I think the "in and out blood flow" helped the healing.

In response to myself, I had a few minutes to find a better study example, as I would have been critical of the animal model.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2971642/

Now, for the detractors, yes this is an article about knees and not ankles/arches. However, this study and several of the studies cited here are pretty clear evidence that eccentric exercise is superior to concentric, let alone simply safe.

I don't think heel drops for PF is a particularly novel idea, nor is it bound to be much more effective than current treatment models, but I'd be happy to add it into my repertoire of things to throw at dudes in pain.

Innervated by this nerve

Division of this nerve

Which is a branch of this nerve

Which contain fibers from this nerve

Which is divided into 3 parts including this one

Which passes through the psoas major (another source of running injuries)

SCIENCE! wrote:

J.R. wrote:

I agree with this.

The eccentric stretching part of the exercise is harmful and is likely to cause the injury to get worse.

The only benefit, if any, would be strengthening, which is better done without the negative weight bearing eccentrics.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18696198

This says the polar opposite of what you just said.

Which proves that I'm right.

For those of you interested in a deeper read on this, the study's author posted a commentary on running-physio's blog, which answers some of the questions.

http://www.running-physio.com/pf-new-research/

I've been fighting this for 3 years now. Have hardly run since I got it. Thanks for this informative thread.

Am I doomed since I have had it this long and not gotten rid of it?

On several occasions it has been 99% gone (right now I would say 98%). But I have the feeling it would flare right back up if I started running. My doctor thinks I should just start running and that might help. I've done most of the standard treatments (PT, cortisone, stretching, icing, rolling over the ball, etc). I haven't tried graston or shockwave therapy.

My symptoms are mild to modest pain which moves around through almost all of the tendons in my foot. One day it is under the heel, next day on the side of the heel (doctor says this is bursitis), next day above or around the big toe, sometimes on the outside of the foot, and lately I feel a knot in the achilles about 2-3 inches above the ground.

Right now I could run pain free and I walk with very mild pain. When I last tried running consistently (2.5 years ago) I could run pain free but could barely walk an hour or so later. A few months ago I was walking pain free and when I started running (VERY light like no more than 5 minutes at 10+ minute pace) the mild pain came back after about a week and has been consistent for the last couple months. I stopped running because the pain trend felt like it was going the wrong way fast.

Any advice?

Thanks.

J.R. wrote:

SCIENCE! wrote:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18696198

This says the polar opposite of what you just said.

Which proves that I'm right.

I got a laugh at that one. Thank you. Sometimes I forget I'm on the Internet and no one actualy wants to have a discussion, they just want to talk about their opinions in the guise of fact.

Poster with the long standing foot pain! Get yourself a fresh new pair of shoes, something you've never run in before, find a nice soft trail, and settle in for the long slow process of "starting over". Take it mile by mile or minute by minutes, stretch and strengthen on your off days, and don't be too hard on yourself about set backs. 98% better is more than most people get before throwing themselves back into the thick of it, so take it as slowly as you need to to get your head and heart back into it. No rush.

SCIENCE! wrote:

J.R. wrote:

Which proves that I'm right.

I got a laugh at that one. Thank you. Sometimes I forget I'm on the Internet and no one actualy wants to have a discussion, they just want to talk about their opinions in the guise of fact.

Poster with the long standing foot pain! Get yourself a fresh new pair of shoes, something you've never run in before, find a nice soft trail, and settle in for the long slow process of "starting over". Take it mile by mile or minute by minutes, stretch and strengthen on your off days, and don't be too hard on yourself about set backs. 98% better is more than most people get before throwing themselves back into the thick of it, so take it as slowly as you need to to get your head and heart back into it. No rush.

Thanks. I ran 15 minutes this morning (if you can call it running) and, although I felt like total garbage in a way I have never experienced before, I think I am just going to keep at it because I can't stand being out of shape anymore. My foot still has pain but I already know total rest isn't curing it, so I am hopeful that some exercise will do something to help it out.

double blind..where?

Once a PFer wrote:

Thermos wrote:

Has anyone had luck with the night splints?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001B5JVIA?cache=492a68dcb667cb2e533e1cf17cf0d443&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1411056425&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Like this?

Yep. Not the most comfortable but better than the sock.

Lighter shoes w/custom orthotics, Vibrams and strengthening exercises got rid of mine.

I think too, once you get PF you have to not only treat the symptom, but you have to prevent what is causing or aggravating it.

^

| This!

I bookmarked this thread earlier for some current PF problems and think a video with a similar exercise might be worth adding.

The exercise in the NY Times article posted by the OP rips at my heels too much, so I kept thinking about something similar.

Last night I "invented" toe presses from a full squat. It seems perfect for lower leg problem rehab and general running conditioning( prehab).

Anyway, so certain that someone else already invented it I searched and found this video, which is better than me trying to explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S34Tj_y4hho

There are a couple of differences. I take my shoes off and do an exaggerated toe press reps , heel all the way back to the ground, and sometimes hold that for reps of 10 seconds. You can spread your toes first if you want...that seems to be a big thing now.

This exercise seems perfect for the weaknesses that lead to PF. It disables the gastrocs and works the Soleus , foot muscles, and most if not all the shin muscles. This is a foot ankle and lower leg builder.

I've had it where it lasted two or three months. And then I learned about bromelain. 500 - 1000 mg with water between meals... Gone in 2 weeks... Every time. it's a unique enzyme that gravitates towards scar tissue and dissolves it. There's a company called Nature's Plus that sells it combined with glucosamine and chondroitin. It works very very well. I posted it here numerous times.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Anyone who has had plantar knows it's really hard to get rid of.

The NY Times talks about a recent scientific study that offers a simple exercise as a possible solution:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/heel-pain-treatment/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0