Here I go again. I hate to start sounding like a broken record, but sometimes a topic just needs revisiting.
There are multiple products and so-called treatments that just address the aches and pains of plantar fasciitis but never treat the underlying cause of it. Take a look at the current Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue. It’s appalling to see four different shoes and a brace specifically aimed at alleviating plantar fasciitis pain. If you bought them all you’d spend a total of $344.75. This doesn’t even include several other products aimed at vague ailments like “foot fatigue.”
Plantar fasciitis is now the most common foot condition doctors treat, but that doesn’t make me any less tired of hearing how often my colleagues have a status-quo mentality in their patient recommendations. An entire industry is now devoted to treating the pain resulting from plantar fasciitis and hundreds of millions of dollars are being made in the process!
Check out this breakdown of a few of these standard treatments for heel pain and what it could cost you:
Wow! Could you believe this much money gets spent on something like planter fasciitis related pain? We spend a lot of money every year on this part of the body. Not only are those estimates conservative, they don’t even bring the cost of pharmaceuticals into the mix.
It disappoints me to know that patients are led to think they should spend their money on these short-term, “fix-it” options. I can tell you, thanks to twenty-five plus years of experience, that these are the facts: you can spend your money on those things, or on surgery. (I’m happy to take it.) If you want the pain to go away, you gotta stretch! You want the pain to stay away? Keep stretching!
What you do today will impact you later on. Go back and read my older posts. You may not believe me now, but it’s why I’m the Angry Orthopod!
Haha, shouldn’t you be charging for that kind of kowlnegde?!
Shoot, who would have thugoht that it was that easy?
How is it that physical therapy costs $75 but a doctor’s visit only costs $25. Not in the world I work. Where did you find this data?
I have had 6 injections, walking boot, night boot, and scraping seemed to help for about a week. My calf, ankle, and foot is always in an uproar. Do you think that more scraping to release the tension will help me?
Also, my toes go numb too.
I, like so many others, was given the “standard” stretches to do for plantar fasciitis. I was also given a boot “splint” to sleep in. I was told not to walk in the splint so if I got up in the night for a bathroom trip I had to wrestle with all the straps to get the splint off and then go through the process again after returning to bed. Not to mention that the splint caused additional pain in my foot besides the plantar fasciitis. I started doing my own research, ran across your site and decided to give your heel stretch a try. I thought, what the heck, it sure couldn’t hurt. After four months of faithfully doing the stretch my plantar fasciitis was gone. I continue to do the stretch as you instructed and have only had an occasional twinge of the problem. Thank you ever so much for sharing your treatment with the public and shame on orthopaedic surgeons who don’t follow your lead.
Hi Patricia,
So sorry for the delay, but it is planting season where I am and that keeps me swamped. Enough about me, let’s talk about you.
Yep, you were advised with the normal line of treatment. I am so glad you found me and read and listened. It is a shame that this simple, stupid little stretch does so much, but is so ignored. Maybe one day it will become sexy and people will stand up and notice.
As to the surgeons and so many others who don’t follow this treatment, I wrestle with with why that is. Confirmation bias leads them to only read the literature that supports their beliefs and if they do read something that supports calf stretching they interpret it as inconclusive or weak. In addition, their experience is that calf stretching does not work. Why? It is impossible to get aa person to stretch when the doctor doesn’t believe it in the first place. Thus, a one tenth hearted endorsement results in basically no stretching, and this is assuming they even provide a stretching protocol or instruction. The net result is that compliance is abysmal and stretching never gets done. Of course it does not work-when it is not done. Finally, surgeons got to do what surgeons do-cut.
Thanks for your positive words, but I am still angry.
Stay healthy, my friends,
AO