Healing Your Plantar Fasciitis

Now that I am in my 60's, it seems as if at least a quarter of the women and ten percent of the men I know suffer from Plantar Fasciitis.  According to the Mayo Clinic, it is the most common cause of heel pain.  It's an inflammation of the plantar fascia, which is the band of tissue that runs across the arch of your foot from your heel to your toes.  Plantar Fasciitis is the name of the condition you develop when your plantar fascia begins to tear away from the heelbone and becomes inflamed.  It can be extremely painful.

Some people only experience the pain when they first stand up in the morning.  As the plantar fascia warms up, the pain goes away.  Other people suffer from it whenever they have been seated for a long time, or if they have been standing or walking a lot.

It is a very common ailment for people who have been runners or dancers, those who have to stand up on their jobs, those who are overweight, and people who wear shoes that do not provide a lot of support.  It also becomes more common as we get older. In my case, my doctor suspected that the sandals and flats that I typically wore were probably the cause of the problem, along with the fact that I was getting older and I had worked for years at a high school where I spent a lot of time on my feet.

Once you are experiencing pain, it is possible to heal your injured foot.  However, it can take months for the pain to go away, even when you immediately begin a treatment plan.  Despite this fact, it is important that you begin treatment as quickly as possible.  If you try to ignore the pain, believing that it will eventually go away on its own, it will only get worse and you could develop foot, knee, hip and/or back problems.

Treatments vary.  In my case, my podiatrist gave me a shot in my heel to reduce the inflammation and pain.  Then, he created a mold of my foot and had custom orthotics made to fit in my shoes.  Unfortunately, even though they were custom made, I did not use the orthotics very often because I did not think they were comfortable.

When I discussed this with my internist, she said that frequently a patient just needs a change in shoes in order to heal the foot.  Both my internist and podiatrist told me that I should wear shoes that were slightly more elevated in the heal than the toe, and my podiatrist gave me the names of some shoe brands to try.

Much to my delight, I have found several attractive, stylish and comfortable brands of shoes that I am able to wear.  Best of all, I haven't felt any pain in my heal in over six months.

While I was experimenting with the different brands, I wrote a series of articles for the online magazine, Squidoo, where I am their "Retired and Loving It Contributor."  These articles were about the different brands of shoes I tried out in an attempt to find the styles that were most comfortable for me, personally.  I am including links to those articles later in this article, so that you can learn more about these brands and see photos of the shoes they offer.

Since I live in Southern California, I particularly wanted to find some flip-flops that I could comfortably wear to the beach in the summer without further inflaming my feet.  Rainbow flip-flops were the ones that worked for me, and there is an article about them below, too.  Both Rainbow flip-flops and Birkenstocks have styles that are also designed for men.

I own at least one pair of every type of shoe mentioned in the list below ... and several pair of the Easy Spirit Travelers that turned out to be the style that was most healing for me.  If you suffer from this common problem, the articles below could be very helpful to you.

Links to Articles about Shoes for Sore Feet:

Easy Spirit Shoes for Women with Sore Feet
Rainbow Sandals for Sore Feet
Comfortable Mephisto Shoes for Women with Sore Feet
Dansko Shoes for Women with Sore Feet
New Balance Walking Shoes for Women with Sore Feet 
Birkenstock Shoes for Men and Women with Sore Feet


Source of information about Plantar Fasciitis:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/plantar-fasciitis/basics/definition/con-20025664

If you are interested in information about other health problems that could affect you as you age, be sure to check out the tab on Medical Concerns at the top of this blog.  It contains links to a number of other interesting articles.  In addition, you may want to check out the tabs on great places to retire in the U.S. and abroad, financial issues, and other topics of interest to people who are retired or planning to retire.

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Photo credit: www.morguefile.com