A New York Times Article Takes on Plantar Fasciitis and leaves us wanting more.

Those who suffer from plantar fasciitis know how painful and debilitating it could be. Recently, Pau Gasau was sidelined with an actual tear on the Plantar Fascia. You can read our analysis done weeks before his final injury took him out of play here. Perhaps, he allowed the team’s doctors to inject him with cortisone to alleviate the pain, only to have the plantar fascia rupture, which is extremely rare. You can read more about the undesirable side effects of too much cortisone here.

Medical specialists had thought that plantar fasciitis was due to inflammation but according to the NY Times, this has proven to be false. There are many other fallacies that come with the theories on plantar fasciitis, especially since most doctors are trained to look at where it hurts, call it something and then to something to it as is mentioned in the article here with his in the box suggestion of “Dr. Philbin suggests consulting a physical therapist, after, of course, visiting a sports medicine doctor for a diagnosis. ”

The problem is not what you call it, but your approach centered at the assumption that since things are tight, we need to stretch, back off our activity and have a daily regimen that will loosen the fascia in the calf and foot as stated here; “Dr. Philbin said if they simply back off their running mileage somewhat or otherwise rest the foot and stretch the affected tissues. Stretching the plantar fascia, as well as the Achilles tendon, which also attaches to the heel bone, and the hamstring muscles seem to result in less strain on the fascia during activity, meaning less ongoing trauma and, eventually, time for the body to catch up with repairs.”

To resolve plantar fasciitis, you must first understand why are their calves tight, and most importantly, why is their heel strike so heavy? In the book Cheating Mother Nature, what you need to know to beat chronic pain, the problems of plantar fasciitis is discussed at length because it is a problem in the core muscles, and one of structure. To resolve this reliably, we cannot just work on the calf. We cannot just rest. Ask anyone who has failed to improve with this regimen (there are many). Sleeping with a boot to stretch the calf does not solve why the calf is tight.

The word chiropractor is not mentioned however, it should be. To solve the problem, we need to look at your core muscles, your leg muscles, your body style, any compensatory issues that can help solve the problem of why you are slamming your feet into the ground. Once we understand this, and the mechanism of why the tissues are constantly being damaged, we can then begin to resolve the condition. Perhaps, in the box thinking that surrounds the condition is the problem. Perhaps, the author needs to speak with out of the box providers to help enlighten the public to new ideas that go beyond where it hurts and go to the source of why.

Here is the original article below

No Consensus on a Common Cause of Foot Pain

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

 

There are more charismatic-sounding sports injuries than plantar fasciitis, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee and turf toe. But there aren’t many that are more common. The condition, characterized by stabbing pain in the heel or arch, sidelines up to 10 percent of all runners, as well as countless soccer, baseball, football, and basketball players, golfers, walkers, and others from both the recreational and professional ranks. The Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have been stricken. But while plantar fasciitis is democratic in its epidemiology, its underlying cause remains surprisingly enigmatic. In fact, the mysteries of plantar fasciitis underscore how little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and why, as a result, they remain so insidiously difficult to treat.Experts do agree that plantar fasciitis is, essentially, an irritation of the plantar fascia, a long, skinny rope of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue becomes irritated, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

read more

Read Cheating Mother Nature, what you need to know to beat chronic pain available through Amazon.com and most other major booksellers.