Dr. Chan was a very nice guy who understood my symptoms very well. I of course have a very common ailment called plantar fasciitis, which basically means your plantar fascia (the thingie that connects your heels to your toe) is inflamed and pissed off.
Treatment will begin with a) an anti-inflammatory drug (yay, a new pill to take) and b) exercises.
In addition, I was to head over to another lab for an x-ray. Dr. Chan was going to look into special insoles for me and I would see him again in two weeks. So far, so good.
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I’ve had this and it is miserable. The best treatment I’ve found for it is massage.
Self massage methods:
Get a golf ball.
Sit in a chair in a carpeted room.
Put golf ball on floor.
Put foot on golf ball so ball is at the arch of the food.
Press down and roll the ball with your foot.
Press as hard as you can, which won’t be much at first.
Do the other foot.
Roll the ball over the whole bottom of your foot with as much attention to the arch and the heel as you can. It will hurt like hell. It will feel like fire. The more you do it the less it will hurt. The first time you may only be able to do it gently and for mere seconds. But do it as often as possible through the day. Once you build up to five minutes or so do it just once or twice a day with each foot. If your desk is on carpet do it while you work.
Once your plantar fasciitis clears up do this exercise once a week or so to make sure it stays cleared up. I have a little plastic ball with pokey things (supposedly to improve the massage effect) sticking out of it that I bought at REI for 5 bucks or so that I use because my office is on hardwood. Golf balls don’t work so well on hard surfaces.
I paid several thousand dollars to chiropractors and podiatrist for special splints, insoles, anti inflammatory meds (no insurance) to no effect. A friend I was whining to said he could fix me for free and even donated the golf ball. Within a week it had cleared up. Came back once when I got lazy about doing the massage.
Not saying Dr Chan’s not the man. Just saying what worked for me.
Hope this helps.
Thanks so much, Karen!