Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Guide

By Carson Robertson DC

People with plantar fasciitis become frustrated with the lack of clear answers, fluctuating foot pain, and various opinions. This complete guide reviews causes of plantar fasciitis, home therapies, home products, conservative treatments, medical treatments, alternative treatments, and provides effective exercises. The book clearly explains and educates you on available options. Learn about plantar fasciitis, possible treatments, and home solutions in one book from someone who treats it every day.

For those who want more answers this book answers why you developed the problem and what other muscles and joints in the kinetic chain could be compromised. When do you ice vs heat? When should you consider orthotics or cortisone injections. Is a night splint worth the sleep loss?

How big of a role do bone spurs play in heel pain? The answer will definitely surprise you! What are the most effective treatments for breaking up scar tissue and causing proper tissue healing?

Most people will require a few different treatments to resolve their foot pain, but which ones provide the greatest benefit?

If you plantar fasciitis started two weeks ago, start icing it several times a day and get a new pair of shoes. It might improve in two weeks and you won’t need this book. However if six months ago you were told the pain would “just go away,” how many more months will you wait before finding the best recommendations and treatments to resolve your daily and worsening pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carson Robertson DC
• Release date: Nov 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463056257

Carson Robertson DC

Dr. Carson Robertson is a native of central Montana and obtained his bachelor's degree at the University of Montana. He subsequently earned his chiropractic degree from Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minnesota in 2004. While an athlete in school, he saw the benefits of chiropractic after an injury sidelined him. With that in mind, his clinic has a special emphasis and expertise in athletic injuries.Dr. Robertson has also been an adjunct faculty member at Paradise Valley Community College since 2009, where he teaches Anatomy and Physiology classes. Education, information, articles, multimedia teaching materials and videos bridge the PVCC classroom and the clinic. His lovable and demanding Pug helped improve the Anatomy and Physiology curriculum, leading to the Alpha Dog Education Series.When the doctor is not working he can often be found running the trails of South Mountain. He has run multiple marathons and ultra marathons, including the Crown King Scramble 50K, Javelina 100K and Javelina 100 Miler.

Book preview

Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Guide

Review of Anatomy, Injury Progression, Shoes, Home Therapies, Products, Conservative Treatments, Medical Options, Exercises, Stretches, FAQs, and More!

By Carson Robertson DC

Copyright © 2019 by Carson D. Robertson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Published November 2019 by Alpha Dog Marketing LLC

4955 S Alma School Rd#10, Chandler, AZ 85248

https://www.robertsonfamilychiro.com

Chapter 1: Why Plantar Fasciitis?

My introduction to plantar fasciitis started in college. Like most of my life lessons, I learned the hard way. After years of playing basketball and running, I started officiating basketball games after classes. A few hours later I had some spending money. On the weekends, I found plenty of youth and adult tournaments that needed a referee to run up and down the courts for hours.

It was fun (most of the time) and active; most days I felt tired running up and down the courts. As a cheap college kid, I had one pair of black shoes. What kind of college kid would spend money on an extra pair of black shoes, or replace a shoe that looked decent on the outside? Who cares about the inside. Four years later and thousands of hours of games, I was wearing the same shoes and my feet started to hurt. Go figure!

This was when AOL was still a thing of amazement, Motorola produced the best flip phones, and you did not Google anything. Information was found in the form of books at Borders bookstores or the library. What I quickly discovered was that treatment for plantar fasciitis was minimal: rest, splints, ice, and cortisone, but it will probably go away on its own.

My foot pain continued to increase in both feet. The mornings were miserable and I felt stabbing pain if I sat for longer than an hour. Mind you, I kept wearing my old shoes, running, and doing very little to make it better. A pair of orthotics helped, but did not solve the problem.

About a year after the pain started, I was in chiropractic school and learned two very important lessons.

1. When a professor says, I just learned this technique last week, let’s try it, run the other way. Students are Guinea pigs for teachers and other students. This is especially important when the professor looks like he should be on the Deadliest Catch, complete with a large, square frame, big beard, and meat hooks for hands. This was his first semester teaching after 20 years in Alaska. I never did verify that his time in Alaska was spent practicing on patients and not working the fishing boats, but I should have.

2. Never let someone work on your feet when their instructions are, "This will be painful but it should only be the most amount of pain you can possibly tolerate."

This is a ridiculous phrase to utter, especially to a 22-year-old guy in a room full of classmates. The professor had just gone to a seminar on Graston technique for soft tissue injuries, which utilizes stainless steel tools sliding along the bottom of the foot to break up scar tissue and cause tissue remodeling. It is a great treatment for plantar fasciitis when used correctly.

The professor’s past patients in Alaska were all very tough men who worked on boats for weeks at a time, and then would only have a week off to recover before the next trip. This tight turnaround required him to push limits on every treatment plan before the fisherman returned to the ocean.

I remember one of his huge hands clutching my ankle as he used the other hand to scrape my foot with the Graston tool. I could not jump or squirm from his grasp. It was all I could take on the left foot, and then he switched to the right. By the time he was done, the bench was covered in my sweat and I was happy I did not cry in front of my classmates.

My feet felt horrible the next few days, probably the worst they had ever felt.

Curiously enough, my feet then started feeling a little better. By the end of the week, the typical morning sharp, stabbing pain had decreased and I was feeling hopeful. Maybe this treatment could help.

So, I made an appointment to see someone else for treatment! My feet were feeling better but it was not worth the pain to let my professor get his hands on me again. The next provider said he wanted to keep my pain comfortably tolerable, which is a much better instruction and treatment style.

One lesson I only needed to learn once: say no to free treatment from an excessively strong Alaskan fisherman, posing as a professor, who doesn’t listen to treatment instructions, learns new techniques on the fly, creates excessive tissue damage, and causes more pain than required for treatment."

Chapter 2: My Interest in Rehabilitation

I have picked up quite a few injuries through the years while participating in sports. There were broken bones that involved my jaw, collar bone, fingers, and ankle. Many sprains and strains to almost every body region, not to mention a few concussions. Needless to say, I learned a lot from being a patient.

My involvement in athletics and sports injuries led me to a career in rehabilitation. I have seen the good and bad from a patient perspective. As a patient, I would ask, Why? Sometimes I would get a good answer, but many times it was very generic.

After turning 30, I completely ruptured by Achilles tendon playing basketball.

Fortunately for me, I had a foot & ankle surgeon’s cell phone number in my blackberry.

The conversation went something like, Hi Dr Su. This is Carson and I just tore my Achilles playing basketball. Can I schedule surgery with you?

Dr. Su: Is it a full or partial rupture?

Carson: Full, but I want to say partial so that I can sleep tonight with a little hope for tomorrow.

Big sigh. Dr. Su: How about meeting me at the office at 7:30 a.m. and I will look at scheduling something as soon as possible for you.

He was nice enough to see me 30 minutes before his first appointment of the day. It is good to make friends with surgeons, especially when you have a history of getting hurt!

The worst part of the appointment was when he told me not to drink any coffee the rest of the day because he had scheduled surgery time for 7:30 that night. I negotiated for an additional 20 ounces if I drank it within 30 minutes of leaving his office. After getting past the caffeine restriction, I had to try and figure out how my office would operate with me on crutches for the next few months.

The surgery went great. I missed one day of work and was back way too soon, but I didn't really have any other options. I worked moving on crutches, rolling on a stool, and hopping around on my good leg.

This work situation was not great for my recovery. My ankle was excessively swollen for months and my recovery was delayed. I spent lunch time filling out patient charts, icing, and hooked up to electric units to minimize pain and swelling. I was exhausted at the end of the day, and it was hard to make rehab exercises a priority after work. I knew I could always do it later. This situation prolonged my recovery and return to full function.

When it was time to see a physical therapist for help, I knew who I wanted to see. Renata was a great therapist with a specialty in soft tissue injuries. She was also a person who would tell me no or be blunt enough to say you’re being stupid. Qualities I needed. She did a great job, especially for having a patient who was not compliant and doing too much on his feet.

She worked in a larger physical therapy clinic. During my rehab sessions, I had the opportunity to watch other therapists work. Some were good, some great, and some definitely did not graduate at the top of their class. Unfortunately, most patients do not know how good their therapist really is, they only know if they like their therapist. I could see how some patients would progress through a plan as they improved, while others were stuck on the same worksheet for 10 weeks.

This happens too often. Many easy injuries can be improved with an average or below average provider, especially if we only measure pain levels. Any provider can get an area to stop hurting eventually.

Good and great providers change tactics, philosophies, and treatment styles when patients are not improving fast enough.

Great providers look at the system and any functional limitations in the system. With many leg injuries, a provider needs to evaluate the entire lower body for functional weakness. For example, a right knee injury changes how you walk, which increases stress on your left plantar fascia, then increasing the likelihood of plantar fasciitis. Adding a few additional exercises or stretches can improve the right knee function during treatment for your foot, and reduce the risk of future flare up or additional compensation injuries.

Great providers utilize a variety of tools, treatments, philosophies, and other providers to help with your recovery. Some injuries will require additional providers to help you heal. It makes sense; not everyone can be great at everything. We often need help, but we have to know when to ask or look for additional help.

Obviously, my Achilles was the main issue, but the limping and compensating movements produced knee and back soreness for months.