(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet, I say with enthusiasm.
- Yes. And our opinion,
of course. - Our opinion.
- But it's a good opinion.
And today, Bob, what I wanna talk about is foot pain.
A lot of times it's diagnosed plantar fasciitis,
whatever the diagnosis is,
we're talking about pain that,
you can get this Nancy,
on the bottom of the foot.
You'll feel it here a lot of times,
right around the heel.
Right now I have a patient diagnosed with it.
Her pain is actually more of the arch right here.
A lot of times the doctor will say
there's a bone spur in there
and you want to get it treated.
Obviously, you don't want to go in there
and get the bone spur out surgically.
It's typically not an option.
And that's good 'cause there's a lot of
conservative things you can do to minimize that.
Now, one thing that you probably heard of,
and that's why you're watching this video is
you can tape your foot.
And how do you tape your foot?
Now the technique that I'm using,
there's a lot of variations on how to tape,
but this technique I found it useful in the clinic.
Right now a person, a patient of mine,
is wearing it very successfully
and she's very happy with it.
So I'm just gonna go start into how to tape it.
I'm gonna use a two layer tape.
Okay, here's the bottom layer.
And then the top layer.
- And this is generally,
this is a hypoallergenic tape.
It's really easy on the skin.
- Sure. Yeah.
- So you usually won't break out from it
and that's the purpose of
using the two layers, right Brad?
I mean- - Right.
- One is to try to protect the skin
and the other one is actually kind of
providing the strength. - Mechanical strength.
- Mechanical strength. - Exactly.
So do not do this
if you have any history of being allergic
to any adhesives from bandaids
or anything else that sticks to your skin.
- It could even be latex too.
Some of them have latex. - Yeah.
So you just, you know,
if you have any history of being allergic
to thing with your skin
you may want to not do this.
- And you might know right away too
if it starts getting red or itchy,
you're always gonna wanna remove the tape.
- Right. Exactly. - Right away.
You don't wait around. - Get some soapy, warm water,
take a shower, get it off.
What I have here is just a simple alcohol wipe
and it's just to get the oils off the, ticklish, huh?
(Bob and Brad laugh)
Oh yeah.
It's not so bad when it's not a real patient.
I don't care, Bob.
But you can just use alcohol,
you know, rubbing alcohol,
just clean the skin up a little bit
and that will be all it takes.
Let it dry off
and then take your first layer of tape.
Now this typically has,
I'm gonna need my glasses for this.
- I didn't even look at this stuff.
How is this?
Oh, looks like it's just one of the split down the middle.
- Yep, right down the middle.
- This is a newer tape we're trying.
- Yep. Okay.
- You want me to get it for you
or can you get it? - No, I can get it, Bob.
I might be 50 years old,
but I can still peel my tape.
There we go.
And this is pretty typical.
It comes off and in two. There we go.
Now what I'm gonna do is
start on the back side of the heel here,
come around the back about an inch or so,
and wrap it around up towards the great toe.
- [Bob] You go in what I would call
the outside of the heel, right?
I mean on the- - Sure.
[Bob] You know, cause- - Technically,
it's the lateral side.
- [Bob] Yeah, if this is the other foot
it would be the side that it's closest to your arm.
- Right. Now I'm gonna put some tension on it.
Okay and pull it.
Not real tight, but snug.
And then I'm gonna pat it down.
Rub on a little bit.
How you doing Bob? - [Bob] Good.
- And keep in mind,
the person's foot should be in neutral.
Otherwise not pointed down like this
but have the person pull up a little bit.
So it's like they are where they're standing.
- [Bob] So it's a right angle.
- Yeah. - [Bob] The foot
and the leg form a right angle.
- Right there.
Right, Bob. - [Bob] Right. Correct.
- It's killing me.
Okay, now we need to,
I've had success
and I think Bob uses just this, right?
When you've had success with just one piece of tape here
and putting on the mechanical strength tape over it.
What I found is that sometimes it's helpful to
put another piece of tape
and we're gonna do that.
Ooh, sticky, sticky.
I'm gonna start here.
We're gonna go around the arch.
Now you want to try to avoid wrinkles.
Wrinkles are not good.
Okay, and we're gonna go right around here
and this you want it snug, but not too tight.
And we're gonna wrap it right around
a complete circle.
Okay and pat it down.
Now sometimes, as a matter of fact
the person I'm working with right now,
I did it this way.
She came back and she just loved it.
She wanted more support.
So I put two layers
or two width of the tape going across the arch.
And it- - And you really got to
make sure that's not too tight
'cause you can actually cut off circulation there.
- Exactly.
- Of the one that goes all the way around.
- Matter of fact, what I did with her
is I had her stand up,
'cause that's when you're gonna find out.
When you stand up your foot splays out
and it'll be amazing how much tighter that gets.
If you start out tight
and you'll know it, it feels tight.
And if you leave it on,
you're gonna have some circulation issues.
It's just not good.
But you can feel it.
Alright. Can you see what I'm doing, Nancy?
- [Nancy] Yep.
- Okay, so we're gonna go here.
- [Bob] Now that piece of tape is going over,
you know, the piece of tape you're already
laying down. - Right.
- [Bob] Again, the one tape is to protect the skin.
This is the one that actually kind of really pulls it,
you know, pulls on it and gives support.
- Yeah, this is very rigid tape.
It has no flexibility as opposed to the other has
some flex and it can breathe.
Okay. Now this one, I typically I'll start here.
- [Bob] You start on the top of the foot.
- Top of the foot and we're gonna go.
Now, this is the one where you really do not want to
get too tight with.
I usually just get it
so there's no wrinkles in it,
a slight tug not much.
Gonna come all the way around.
If you get a little wrinkle in it, it's not bad.
A lot of times you can just
wipe it off with your hand or your fingers.
Come around, lap it.
Lap it not lap it up like a dog.
(Brad and Bob laugh)
Okay. Sometimes my humor is infectious.
- The mind of Brad Heineck.
- Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna do this.
Okay, now Bob, why don't you stand on that
and tell me how it feels.
Yeah, pull. Yeah, look at those legs.
Okay, how does that feel, Bob?
Do you feel that you there?
- [Bob] Yeah, actually what it does,
it does give some art support is what it's doing.
- [Brad] Yeah. - [Bob] So it's
holding the arch up.
- [Brad] Now, if you're having pain in this area
and you do this, you should immediately feel relief.
When I did this, with that person I'm working with now
I put it on and she said, oh, does that feel better!
She could walk without a limp.
Without it, she limped.
With it, no lamp, literally.
- Right. - And then-
- Well, if I were so just say,
I mean there's a lot, like Brad said,
there's a lot of different taping techniques.
- Yeah. - And it's a hit
or miss thing to some extent, wouldn't you say?
- Yeah.
- I've tried this with people and they've hated it.
I mean the one I've tried
and I've tried people and it was a miracle.
- Yeah. It won't work every time,
but when it does-
- This actually feels really good.
- If it works,
if you find success with it,
obviously not gonna tape yourself forever.
You'll tape yourself,
do some other treatment that PT can do (indistinct)
They'll teach you how to use ice on it, et cetera.
One of our videos, foot pain video,
tells you the other things you can do with it.
You still wanna be taping it for a few days.
The inflammation should be down by then.
You don't need tape.
However, if taping helps
it might mean you need an arch support in your shoe.
So you can just buy a standard across the shelf insert
in your shoe
and it'll support just like the tape does.
It takes the place of the tape.
It's a diagnostic tool to find out
if you do need arch support in some cases.
- And I would generally say, Brad is,
you can't keep the tape on more than 48 hours.
- No. - And you can a shower
with it on. - Yep.
- Especially if it's that heavy stuff.
But after 48 hours,
you take it off no matter what.
For one thing, it's probably stretched out
by the. - Right.
- It's probably not doing the job anymore.
And secondly, you wanna look,
you know, as you start to untape it,
you wanna look and see is the skin red at all underneath it.
If it's reacting at all,
you're not gonna be able to retape it
until that skin is actually clear again so.
- I did tape one person,
she didn't know she was allergic
and she was and it was a nasty red.
- Yeah, I think we've all had that.
I mean, we use the same tape on the knee.
There's a very cool technique
for doing knees. - Sure.
- And I had people that actually we taped for weeks,
it was fine.
And then like the fourth week,
you know, where we were just about ready
to get done with it. - Sure.
- She just broke out.
Like you said, nasty red.
You know, cleared up eventually,
but it's amazing how it could sneak up on you
even when you think you're past it all.
So this feels really cool, Brad.
It does feel like it's pulling on my-
- Yeah, it's a nice technique, good one,
and it can really be effective.
So foot pain, tape, they can work together.
So if you're folding it over, even if you're under,
but folding it over, man,
a lot of these techniques are really helpful
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- You're gonna talk long enough, Bob.
We better get off the air.
- Sounds cool.