Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis is a condition where the flat band of tissue connecting your heel and toe (ligament) becomes irritated, torn, and inflamed. It is super painful and I have it in my left foot. In particular, the arch of my left foot hurts like, like I don't know what. Aside from tearing the ACL in my right knee, I've never dealt with something quite so painful.

To heal Plantar Fasciitis, you are suppose to stretch it, massage it, ice it, take some NSAIDs, and basically stay the hell off of it. In other words - no killer Body Rock workouts. This is would probably be enough to make me cry if I wasn't already crying in pain. To keep from re-injuring it, you need some shoes (all ugly BTW) with killer arch support and to continue to do stretches to keep it loose and supple.

Here is my plan to treat this stupid thing so that I can get back to Body Rock ASAP.

Stretching - I'm going to do calf stretches on the stairs 3 times a day. I'm going to use my Gym Boss for this (at least I can still use my favorite toy), setting it for 12 rounds of 30:30 intervals. I'll stretch my left calf for 30 seconds and then my right calf for 30 seconds and repeat.

At first I was dubious that calf stretches were going to help the bottom of my foot, but I've already done this once today and it makes my left foot scream in pain.

Icing - After I'm done stretching it out, I'll ice it for 20 minutes using a small frozen water bottle. This is to help bring down inflammation. It also hurts like hell. I also have a cold pack that I'm going to bring to work with me so that I can ice it throughout the day.

Massage - After perusing the Internet for a few hours I've decided that self massage can greatly speed up the healing process. While holding back my toes, I'll rub from the ball of my foot toward my heal. This will help loosen it up and increase blood flow. This is also hella painful, but the more you can take, the better it is and the faster it will heal. I'm thinking 2 times a day for 20 minutes is a good start - once in the morning and once at night.

NSAIDs - I'm going to start taking Aleve 2 times a day to help with the pain and inflammation.

Shoes - New workout shoes are definitely on the menu since I'm holding my old pair at least partially responsible for this debacle. I'm still researching at this point, but my preliminary research says that New Balance makes some pretty great shoes with the kind of arch support and fit that I need. I'm also going to look into getting some sort of orthotic inserts for my regular shoes. I've looked at buying special orthopedic shoes, but they are all so unbelievably ugly, I can't bring myself to do it.

So, obviously, no workout today. Sucks.