His wife finally got him to come in. After two plus years of struggling with plantar fasciitis. Hundreds of dollars in orthotics from a podiatrist and multiple other specialists left him no better off.
When he left after his first visit he was already greatly improved. In a few weeks, the pain was gone.
How did this happen?
On his first visit I tested all the muscles of his foot and ankle. I found the muscles that weren’t working. From there I back tracked to figure out WHY they weren’t working. Every patient will be unique. What is the problem in one person won’t be the same in the next person.
The key to plantar fasciitis is finding and fixing the muscles that support the foot. Without the proper muscle support, excess stress gets placed on the fascia (band of tissue) on the bottom of the foot (the plantar surface).
The foot is an engineering marvel. When working correctly it doesn’t need fancy shoes or arch supports. It was designed to flex and move providing shock absorption to the body. It’s designed to be barefoot.
However, when muscles aren’t doing their job, the whole structure falls apart. The arch collapses, the foot starts to roll inward excessively, and the heel bone rotates backward.
In this man I had to correct the position of numerous foot bones, release scar tissue in the lower leg, correct damaged ligaments, and even help one of his struggling organs. All of these were important in correcting the problem.
Oh, and I immediately told him to ditch the orthotics. A foot won’t heal if it’s in a cast. He was all for it. He even mentioned they seemed to make him worse when he played basketball.
Yep. They transfer force unnecessarily to other parts of the body.