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I developed PF 2 weeks before the London marathon this April (this sounds like a PF annonymous meeting "Hi I'm Jeff....I've got PF..!) anyway after my last long run the next day I was in agony, I thought I had cramp to start with but it just wouldnt go. I ran the marathon anyway as I was being sponsored (for Save the Rhino - in a giant rhino suit!) and couldnt walk for 3 days afterwards.
Since then I have used ice, anti-inflammatories, night splints, orthoheels and had a cortisone jab (painful and no use) and I havent run a single stride since April. The consultant I saw told me to take up cycling!
Night splints and orthoheels have worked a bit but I still get pain every day, especially after standing for long periods. Does anyone else get pain from driving? I find it one of the worst things to do. I find it interesting that some people have been told to run through it, I couldnt imagine it.
Sorry to go on but I needed to have a rant about PF ! I was probably at my lowest last week when I had to watch my other half run the Woburn 10K. I know how you feel RhinoT ( are you a rhinophile?) there doesnt seem to be any end to it.
Still its good to know that some people get better and I am going to increase my icing and stretching and going to see a sports podiatrist asap and go for the custome orthotics option.
I feel better already !!
Do you have it in both feet?
I've only ever had pain in my left foot when I drive, oddly enough my right foot, which has always been much worse, has never troubled me when driving, even when I drove 130 miles on holiday. I suspect it's cos the position of the right foot is always flexed, just like the idea of a night splint.
DoctorK - you certainly seem to have it under control - maybe you acted quicker in the first place. I just ignored it cos I didn't know what it was.
"Short 24 min run"? Debbie yearns longingly for a run of such magnitude...
Rhino - your symptoms sound identical to mine. I can relate exactly to your response to running. I had a short run back from the bike shop today - it was just half a mile but included a sprint up a hill cos 2 lads on a bike challenged me to a race. I won, of course, despite being at least 3 times their age. Nice to see I've not lost my competitive streak
If it's OK, I'm going to try a 5 minute run, then increase it by just a minute each time. Maybe I need to build it up a bit more gradually.
I think I'm geting some benefit from the heated foot spa massage. I just switch it on while I'm on here and I save on the central heating too!
Yes Jeff -driving does provide some discomfort occasionally, often more so than running -seems worse if you have the foot at an angle to the pedal (mine's in the right foot).
Interesting that you think you are benifitting from heated foot massage. The physio tonight showed me how to massage my feet and said to warm them up in water first. I always thought ice was the idea???? Different physio tonight AGAIN - he's a r*nner and was therefore much more positive than the one they gave me last week, who told me to stop r*nning. He did however say that I was r*nning too far
Well another week of stretches and massage and hopefully I'll get there in the end
My massage consisted of working both thumbs up from the bottom of the feet to to the forefoot and pressing quite hard til the toes splay. Then working back down again. Once you reach the sore spot near the heel working across the muscle with both thumbs at that spot, to break up teh scar tissue. I did find doing this last thing at night and first thing in the morning (gently) really did help.
It has to be said though I think one of the reasons my PF is so improved is that at worst I had to take 6 weeks off running, and had trouble walking. I think mine was chronic not acute. The thing about it is, it needs constant attention, we are talking x5 set of stretches to whole leg a day, x2 massages a day, ice/heat apparently a combination of the 2 speeds up the healing process. I hate being injured, and I'm incredibly impatient so I had every remedy known to man tried tested and chucked out in weeks..........anything that helped was done almost every hour!
The idea that you should run through the pain seems bizarre, to the point of downright dangerous! My GP is a nonrunner, and I have learnt to my cost not to bother him with running related injuries as ibuprofen and rest is the only cure he ever seems to offer
In answer to your massage thing it seems a combination of the two is what my massage was like.
Fin.
A mistake i made was not seeing a podiatrist as soon as possible,as i`ve read that the sooner you get the right treatment, the sooner it will get better. I waited to see an NHS podiatrst, who was very good, but it took 6 months to see him.
The first thing the podiatrist did was tape my foot which really helped. The tape does the job of the PF, taking the strain off it.
I`ve also tried nite splints but they made my foot ache more so i stopped using them. I then had custom orthotics made which i`m wearing now.
This next bit is my opinion, so check this out with your physio or POD. A mistake i made with the orthotics was not taking my original shoe inserts out before putting the orthotics in. The shoe inserts were thicker at the heel than toes which had the effect of pushing the orthotics high up into my arch making them VERY uncomfortable. Having now corrected this i`m getting on with them much better.
Another thing which has occured to me is this. Most shoes, trainers and walking boots have a raised heel but are lower towards the toes. When i had casts made of my feet (for the orthotics)my feet were flat on the ground. This would again have the effect of pushing the orthotics too high into the arches of my feet. What i`ve done is cut some boot insoles in half and put them in the front half of my shoes and let the Orths look after the back half. This seems to work well. I also have some flat gel iserts (from Boots) for cusioning.
Does anyone know of a make of trainer and walking boot with a flatter floor as they seem to have even higher raised heels than shoes?
I have also been advised to stop training until my PF recovers, and only then return to training, but very slowly.
Good luck.
When you say ice /heat - do you mean in one then straight in the other? Or on total separate occasions.
And how long did you massage for before you were better?
I'm so desperate.
Know how you guys feel. I have a PF injury at the moment and very frustrating. Just want to go running or play tennis, or even walk without pain.
However, it's good to hear people being positive and this is a spur for me.
I find walking much more painful than r*nning and standing still is also more painful. I haven't walked my dog since January! Which really p!sses me off as we used to walk for hours (after I'd already r*n for hours). Don't worry tho I have other ways of excercising her, she's not neglected.
Rhino - I see you're getting conflicting advice too! Ran for 6 minutes yesterday. Slightly uncomfortable during the evening but OK today so will carry on building up slowly. Been to physio today and he is very in favour of keeping running. He told me to resume with the golf ball too but to apply less pressure. He also said the exercises with the stretchy band do not put any strain on the plantar fascia so I've to continue with them to strengthen my ankles. Regarding the up and down on the toes, he said to prevent strain on the pf, don't go up as far.
I miss running with my MP3 player but it's not worth getting hooked up for 6 minutes! Oh well, only another 87 mins to go then I can do a half-marathon with full musical accompaniment!
I don't seem to suffer as badly as some of you when it comes to walking. Seem to be able to walk all day without much difficulty. It's only when I've been running the day before that I have problems walking. Can walk 9 miles with the dog (want me to take yours Rhino?) better than I can stand still for 20 minutes at work. Quite bizarre.
My sports injury book says of PF:
"the support phase of running occurs three times faster and the forces that must be attenuated so a mild structural fault will take on three times the significance"
so is interesting you find walking more painful. But I suppose the impact from running temporarily numbs the feeling...
Would running on a slight decline gradient on a well-padded treadmill help?
Builder - i think walking is more painful cos i take longer strides which stretches my foot - ouch. When i plod now i have to do very short strides so as not to hurt it too much. And i find uphill much more comfortable and downhill quite painful. I do hope yours goes quickly and you don't have months/years out like many of us
It took 14 weeks to see a specialist - privately!!! My (locum) doc forgot to send the referral letter :-{
Finally I've been having physio - manipulation (ouch!) and ultrasound. I have had heel risers added to my orthotics (that is helping a lot - by reducing the strain on the PF) and am icing, stretching and rolling tennis balls under my feet daily...
...and last week I ran again! 4x2min at 8'30" pace on a treadmill. I felt so feeble in the gym running like that and stopping after 2 minutes - like I wanted to shout to everyone that I was returning from injury in case they thought that was all I could do :-} Daft eh?
Today I pushed that to 4 x 3 minutes and still no big pain. Wow!
Still not allowed on real roads, but it's a start... and after missing 5 months that kind of pace is a hell of a lot harder than it used to be :-{ - possibly because I've put on an extra stone (and I was no lightweight to start with).
I've had to retire from football (soccer) as it's just more than my feet can cope with. I can walk around generally OK, but it starts to hurt after about 2 or 3 hours - which is a big improvement over not being able to walk at all without pain, and I played tennis a couple of weeks back and it was almost no problem. Got sore that evening, but again, that is a huge improvement.
So I guess what I'm saying is... be patient. Between them physios and podiatrists can make a big difference, but it won't happen overnight.
Good luck everyone!
Physio said to do golf ball for 10mins - it would feel numb after 5 mins so I wouldn't feel any pain after that!
Inspector Gadget - I must admit I've been tempted to resort to the treadmill myself. Normally, I hate tready running (something to do with the lack of fresh air and the absence of any scenery), but I suspect I may be able to run for longer than I can on the road. I chuckled at your comment about telling everyone you'd been injured. When I ran for 6 mins yesterday I waa paranoid that the neighbours might have seen me leave and return so quickly!
Glad you're on the mend now
Debs - your bottom!
I've been self massaging for about 6 months, and I've had 4 sessions with the sports therapist, and I still have bad days, like today! 95% of the time though no pain. When I say a bad day, my foot was slightly sore for the first 5 minutes, no pain now.
The heat and ice thing is best ice first then heat straight after. Ice 15 mins. heat up to 45. Repeat 3 times a day. Boots do some fab gel heat ice packs that you keep in the freezer and warm up in the kettle, £5. I have 2 and they come out on a regular basis to deal with any little niggle.
Interestingly the reason I had pain this morning was I didn't run yesterday and also forgot to stretch as we had family round. I have found ignoring regular maintenance of my PF is at my own peril!! It's a very demanding injury.
Fin.
After reading all these hints and recovery stories, I really felt as if I could beat this so I got off my *rse and saw a podiatrist yesterday (the foot clinic, advertised on RW). Very professional, he put electrodes in my shoes and made me walk on a treadmill whilst analysing the pressure across my foot. Every orthotic he tried didn't make the readings any different - I just cant put pressure on my right foot because it hurts. Still I have a temporary custom orthotic which he says should work in a week or so if it is going to.
I am now going to embark on an icing,heating,stretching,golf/tennis balling marathon for the next two weeks and set myself a date for my first run in 7 months!
Good luck everyone
Debbie_ let me know what your podiatrist says re orthotics and shoes with raised heels and lower toes.
Rhino - yep, that's it exactly. It's hard fighting the temptation to keep going, just to show them... :-} Tennis ball is great - it's like getting a foot massage - golf ball sounds nasty... have you annoyed your therapist? ;-}
Good luck Jeff!!
Jeff - sounds like you've got it bad. Best wishes with your recovery. One thing I've learned though is not to set any targets. I've lost count of how many races I was "going to do" and every time I failed to make it, I got so despondent. I know it's a bit of a cliche but I've found the "one day at a time" philosophy stops me building my hopes up. PF is such an unpredictable thing that planning anything is impossible!
Inspector - I love the enthusiasm brimming from your other thread. Happy days indeed
Good luck Jeff.
Mick - of course seems obvious now! Dur!
IG - hmm think my physio must just be v mean.
Debs - hows it going? Does your jabbed foot feel much better than other one?
Stick with it Rhino!! Mind over matter!
Fin.
Rhino - the day after I did the 13 min run, both feet hurt equally. However, my left one has responded well to physio/ice/stretches and is now nearly better. Haven't had much physio on my right one cos he didn't want to do anything that would interfere with the cortisone. It's much better than before the jab but not cured. He had to press very hard to find a sore spot (before the jab I only needed to look at it and it hurt!) and said the pain was where the PF inserted into the heel. He said the cortisone would only remove the inflammation (which it has) so presumably the PF can heal better now the inflammation has gone. However, I suspect that running is inflaming it again. Might not run for a bit. How long the good intentions will last though is another matter.
Got a new problem now to share. Made the ice pack with surgical spirit and water as described in October's RW but ignored the bit about covering it with a towel before using it. Am now sporting an impressive ice burn on the bottom of each heel! Walking has been murder today. Not felt much PF pain as it's been well and truly masked!
Hope it doesn't affect the way I walk when I see the podiatrist tomorrow.
Rhino - you still going to the doc's next week?