Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis... A runner nightmare ! I have been plagued by this "evil " since Feb and it is still sticking to me like a leech.

Lucky for me ( touch wood), I could pretty much run through this injury. I did many research. It seems that this is one of the few injuries where you can run through it. The rule of thumb #1 - if it continues to hurt after two miles.. stopped. Plantar usually hurt at the start of run and goes away for a while. The pain comes after one stop running. But it will go away in a few hours after a run. Rule of thumb #2: If it continues to hurt a few hours after one stopped running.. rest the next day.

The traditional method of treating plantar is pretty much : Stretch. I did that a lot initially.. morning and night. Twice a day. However, I stopped doing the static stretches after reading the doc soc article (<- click here) on Plantar.

I have been following the Doc Soc's method of treating Plantar for a month now. His method is simple :

1. Stop stretching
2. Do toes crunching exercise to strengthen the arch
3. Find the real injury along the calves and behind the shin bones

I did a search for the "real injury behind the shin bones. Found a sore spot and I kept rubbing or trigger point it. The sore spot went away and I could feel less pain on my Plantar. I was puzzled why I continued to feel pain ( though less pain). I did a more thorough search and found a knot behind my calf right below the knee. The spot was so familiar. I remembered "feeling" it occasionally. I left it alone since it was not "bothering" me. I did a trigger point on that knot.. Gosh...i could feel the pain through the plantar. I kept rubbing at it... the more I did ,the more sore it became. This lasted for 2 days. On the third day, the know was gone. The pain in my plantar was reduced by a lot

I am still not 100% over from this injury.  But, I think that I am getting better. The pain is less acute. In fact, I could hop out of bed and walk down stairs after a run without pain these days. On days when it hurt a lot after a run, I would run my fingers through my calf and shin bones. I usually find some sore spots. I would rub into them and the pain would be less acute.

I am following this routine for next few months....Hopefully I can get rid of this evil soon !