♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Hi, folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our own opinion of course, Bob.
- This video is a part of a series of videos
on plantar fasciitis.
If you would like to the see the entire series
go to bobandbrad.com.
Go to the program section and look for plantar fasciitis.
- Sure.
- So this one is called,
will a night splint help my plantar fasciitis?
Now, the purpose of a night splint is
it's going to apply a stretch all night long
so that the plantar fascia gets healed
in a lengthened position.
- Which is the same as when you're up and standing.
And quite often what you'll find out with plantar fasciitis
is that, you know, it feels good
when you wake up in the morning.
Then you take a couple of steps and it retears.
And all of a sudden you have that really sharp pain.
- Right.
- So what we're trying do is prevent that
by stretching all night long.
This worked really well for my wife.
This is what put her over the edge,
but I would recommend that you first try
our first four or five videos and see if that helps you.
Maybe you aren't going to need a splint.
- Right.
Yeah, it's an option.
- It's an option.
So, you're going to try the stretches and massage first.
The problem with splints, they can be bulky.
They can have a poor fit.
They can be uncomfortable,
and it can take a while to get accustomed to them.
- Sure.
- It could get to the point where
it may even affect the way you sleep,
and believe me you need your sleep in order to heal.
- Right.
- So, that's the negative part of it.
So again, if you're making the improvement, hold off.
Some people, with, when they have a stretch
on their foot all night long,
it actually, the foot gets numb,
so that's not good either.
- Right.
They may have it adjusted too tight possibly.
Too much stretch.
Are we going to get into that, Bob?
- Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll talk about that,
but we're going to talk about four different options
basically I have here.
The first one is an anterior night splint.
That means a splint that fits on the top of the foot more.
- Yeah.
Maybe should we say more clearly what the splint is doing?
- Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
- So that we clarify the stretch.
So, if I'm laying in bed all night long
and my foot is like this,
which everyone sleeps with their foot we call plantar flex,
that plantar fascia is going to start to heal
in a shortened position,
and when you stand up and put weight on it,
stretch and it tears like Bob was talking about.
- Yeah.
- If we maintain the foot in this position all night long,
it will heal in the same position as when you stand on it,
eliminating that painful tear.
- And it even goes up into the big toes.
- Yep.
- That's why you'll see some of these,
we like it when they actually stretch the toe
a little bit too.
But again, it's got to be tolerable.
You can't put up with it if it hurts all night long.
- Right.
- And you won't be able to sleep,
and you won't, you'll be throwing this thing away.
- Right.
- So, very good that we took time to do that.
These anterior splints, what I found out with them
is they do well in holding the arch up,
but they don't really pull on the toe at all,
you know, at all.
But they did research,
and they found out that these kind of beat out
the posterior ones to some extent.
I have one here by Vatery, V-A-T-E-R-Y.
I'm absolutely not recommending it.
Not by any means.
This is only part of it.
It fell apart on me.
The little, what would you call that, buckle, fell off.
- Yeah.
- And, I mean.
- It's hard to put on.
It's just, it was awful.
- So, anterior means
- The front of the foot.
- The splint is on the front of the foot,
and there is nothing on the back or the side the of the foot
in regards to an actual splint.
And you'll see the difference when we show the posterior.
- The nice thing about, you know, anterior one
is they usually tend to be a little bit less bulky.
- Yep.
- God, my wife had one that was just really a nice one.
I would have recommended it all day long,
and they no longer sell it.
I mean, it was not bulky.
It worked well.
- Yep.
- So.
- And the other thing is, when you get up at night,
if you have to go to the restroom or something?
- Right.
- Your foot, you can walk on it.
- Right.
- Where, this
- I mean it's made,
you can walk on these,
but they're a little
- Sometimes, it's a, well, you know, if you're half awake,
and all of the sudden you forget you had it on,
you know it could pose a risk for a fall.
- Yeah, Herman Munster.
So, this is a posterior splint,
and like Brad is saying,
you know, the problem with it, it's bulky.
You know, imagine this in bed with you under the sheets.
Again, it does work.
I like the fact that you can really adjust
how much tension you have.
- So I can push it down here.
- Yep.
- Or, as it gets better, you continually
pull it up a little bit,
you know, a little bit at a time.
Now, this would be too much.
I feel an aggressive stretch.
- Right.
- But I'm just demonstrating.
- Now, you can also,
a lot of them come with a little wedge here,
so you get a little stretch on the toe, too,
on the toes.
So, yeah.
I, you know, positionally, I like this so much better.
It's just not comfort wise, that they're not good.
The problem is, I know I look at the reviews.
They all have kind of poor reviews.
I haven't found any anterior or posterior splint
that has decent reviews.
- Yeah.
- So, it's kind of a bugger.
- I've got a patient right now who's had it for a long time,
and he says, yeah they help,
but he doesn't wear it every day.
He says maybe three nights a week,
and he says it does help when I get off,
but it's a little awkward in bed with sleeping.
And so again, it's something that you really should
use consistently day after day after day.
And then if you go one or two weeks,
and you're not getting good results,
then you can assume it's not going to help.
- The other thing you can try
is a plantar fascia night sock.
Now, the problem with these
is people have been having trouble with the fit.
But they sound like the perfect thing, don't they, Brad?
- Yeah.
- Cause it's a sock, and it has a little strap
that pulls up and attaches to a,
usually just a little bit of a collar right up here.
- Yeah.
- And, you know, the problem is
people really have trouble with the fit on those,
but if you can get the fit right
I mean I would probably lean towards those.
- So, that's just a regular sock.
- Yep, and it's got a strap attached to the sock.
- Yep.
- And it pulls up to like,
they just have a strap that goes up here,
and they attach it.
You'll look it up on Amazon.
We'll have a link below.
- What's it called again?
- A plantar fascia
- Sock.
- Plantar fasciitis night sock.
- Okay.
- So, the final thing which Brad and I aren't so sure about,
about, you know, ideally what it's doing,
is a compression sock.
And you got one on Brad, want to show it off?
- Right here, yeah, yep.
- So, they got these compression,
plantar fasciitis compression socks.
They got great reviews.
I mean, they got thousands of reviews,
and they're in the 4.5 range,
so, I mean, you might want to check them out.
They definitely feel like they hold your arch a bit,
right, Brad?
- Yeah, there is definitely, I mean they're tight to get on.
You don't just slip them on.
You got to work at it a little bit,
but, you know, it feels good.
It's going to eliminate, if you have any swelling problems,
going to at least help that,
and it's supporting the plantar fascia for sure.
But, it's got good reviews,
and we have not had patients that have worn it,
and said, yeah they really help.
- Right, we haven't had anyone, right.
- But that's not saying we're behind the times.
I don't know why.
- Yeah, we'll find out.
Maybe you guys can let us know in comments below
whether or not it helps you, so.
Thanks everybody for watching.
Again check out the full series at bobandbrad.com.