When I woke up the other morning and first set my left foot
down on the floor, a pain shot up through my heel that made me yelp like one of
my dogs. I hobbled into the bathroom
and with each step, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” involuntarily escaped from my lips.
I had no idea what was going on. I mean, I was fine when I
went to bed, so what had happened while I slept, especially to an area as
remote as my heel? I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone for a heel-jarring jog while
I was asleep.
“Shake it off,” I said to myself as the day progressed. And
so, big brave (make that stubborn) soul that I am, I decided I still was going
to take my daily three-mile walk.
By the end of the second mile, I was in so much pain, I was
ready to hitch a ride the rest of the way back home, even if the driver was
wearing an orange prison-jumpsuit. Every step felt as if iron spikes were being
rammed up into my foot. And even worse, my Achilles tendon decided to empathize
with its buddy, my heel, and match it pain for pain. By the time I got home, I
was hopping on the good foot because I couldn’t put any weight on the painful
one.
For the next three days, getting out of bed in the morning
was absolute torture because that’s when the pain was the worst. It made no sense to me because I figured
that any body part that had just experienced eight hours of rest should feel
better, not worse. It got to the point where I was late for everything because
I was too chicken to take that first excruciating step every morning.
Well, as it turned out, I was diagnosed with something about
a third of the population has had (or probably will have) the pleasure of
suffering from at some point – plantar fasciitis – which is a fancy term for an
inflammation of the wide, flat connective-tissue that runs the length of the
foot.
If there’s one thing I’ve now learned about plantar
fasciitis it’s that the condition has more suggested treatments than just about
any other ailment in the history of ailments. For example, I talked to my
friend, a pharmacist, who also just happens to be blessed with chronic
heel/fascia pain.
“It’s a really common ailment,“ he said, “especially in the
50-plus age bracket.”
“So tell me how to get rid of it,” I said. “Like by
tomorrow.”
First, he told me to roll my foot over a tennis ball – or a
frozen water bottle. Then he suggested that every morning, I take a
towel or a scarf, loop it under my toes and then pull back on it to stretch my
foot before trying to walk on it.
“The reason why plantar fasciitis gets worse while you
sleep,” he explained, “is because the ligament contracts when it’s not used, so
the longer you sleep, the tighter it gets. Therefore, before you even attempt
to get out of bed, stretch your foot and calf by gently pulling back on your toes, as if you’re
trying to make them touch your shin, to help ease the tightness.”
He also said that many people fear the pain so much, they
don’t want to put any weight on their heel, so they walk on their tiptoes,
which makes the problem even worse.
“Don’t ever wear high heels,” he said, “or do
anything that will constantly lift the heels. You want to make your heels go down
to loosen the fascia, not up.”
He suggested I stand on a low curbstone or a thick board and
then lower my heels to the ground for a “proper” stretch. He also said I should walk only on soft,
never hard, surfaces.
“But my floors are all hardwood and my daily walks are on
asphalt,” I said.
He sighed and slowly shook his head. “No, that won’t do.
That will just make it worse.”
“You’re saying I should walk in the grass, then? And get
attacked by ticks and...snakes?”
“Well, you could go over to the high-school’s rubber track
and walk on that,” he said.
I had visions of being stared at by dozens of students looking
out of the school’s windows as they joked about the “old lady” hobbling around
on their track. Either that, or they’d think I was a new
student....who’d been kept back about 50 times.
“You have flat feet?” my pharmacist friend asked me.
I nodded. “They are SO flat, when I leave bare footprints in
the mud, they look like two bricks. There are no curves to them at all.”
“Then you need custom-made orthotics, not the inexpensive
over-the-counter ones.”
“I wear custom-made $300 orthotics every day,” I said. “So
that’s why I’m surprised I ended up with this pain.”
“How about your shoes?” he asked. “They have to be good and
solid, too.”
“I have very supportive shoes – also expensive.”
“Well then, be sure to leave them and your orthotics on at
ALL times,” he said. “Never wear flip-flops, slippers or go barefoot.”
“Even in the shower?” I asked, picturing myself naked and
clomping around in laced-up shoes.
After several more suggestions, including deep massage, gel-pads, acupuncture and Ibuprofen, I finally said to him, “If I do
all of these things, will the pain finally go away so I can get back to normal
again?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “You’re probably stuck with it for
life.”
Needless to say, that wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for.
So when I got home, I posted my problem on Facebook and
asked people who had experienced plantar fasciitis to let me know what had (or
hadn’t ) worked for them.
The good news was that many who responded said the pain did
eventually go away and, as long as they kept up the stretching exercises and/or
wore thick, cushioning foot pads, it didn’t come back.
The bad news is, I’m still receiving suggestions, and some
of them are pretty weird - like slicing an onion in half and rubbing it over my
heel, or massaging my feet with Vicks Vapo-Rub and covering them with woolen socks before going to bed.
I’m not about to dismiss any suggestions, however, because
if I get desperate enough, I just might try every one of them – including one
that involved squishing my feet in fresh cow-manure.
That is, if I can find a cooperative cow.
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