Hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you five treatments
for plantar fasciitis. so let's get started.
If you haven't already, make sure and click the
subscribe button right down there. so you like my fancy compression socks? I'm
going to talk about those a little bit later. so with plantar fasciitis, a lot of
times you have that pain right there on that plantar fascia, but sometimes you
can have it just out your heel, in the back, way up top. so it doesn't always
have to be at your arch. plantar fasciitis can be caused by a lot of
different things, it can even be caused by your knees and your hips, so it's
really important to kind of find out what's going on especially if you're
treating the plantar fasciitis and it's not getting better.
so the first thing that I like to do is really get the joints moving in the foot.
we have so many bones and joints in our foot, all along here and all along here,
so to get those joints moving you can just really simply start off like kind
of curling your toes down this way. Fanning them up this way. rolling them to
the side back and forth, and what's that's doing with those joints is just
kind of mobilizing them. bending in like this
if those joints are tight or maybe have some adhesions or scar tissue in there,
that's gonna increase that plantar fasciitis because your foot's not gonna be
moving how it's supposed to. so you can just spend 1 or 2 minutes on this. you
don't have to do a lot, you can again kind of fan out those toes push down on
them curl them in push that way. you know fan forward, fan back, just really get all
of those joints around the foot even the heel in the back. kind of would go back
and forth just to get those moving. And a lot of times, that will just help loosen
it up and that will feel really good as well. so the next one is just using a
ball to kind of roll stuff out. so this is a lacrosse ball. you can use a
tennis ball. you can use a racquet ball. you can really use anything. you can
use a foam roller if you want to. I like using a
lacrosse ball because it's a little bit firmer and it gives you a little more
pressure, but if you have plantar fasciitis and it's really tender and
painful, you might just want to start off with something like a racquetball or a
tennis ball that's a little more squishy. so to start off with, I like to stretch
the big toe or we call it the first Ray because if you have a lot of stiffness
in that big toe, and you don't get that toe extension when you're walking you
don't get that normal gait pattern, so this is tight that can cause plantar
fasciitis as well. so sometimes I think we forget that first ray or that big toe,
but it's really important to stretch and I like the ball because you can just
focus on that big toe there. I'm going to turn it this way just so you can see it
where my the rest of my toes kind of go down but that big toe stays on the ball
just to stretch it out. so I really like that you can use it like a traditional
stretch hold it for 30 seconds, take a break, do that three times. or you can do
some shorter ones if it's really tight and painful and do like a 15 to 20
second, and do maybe five of them. so then still with the ball after you get that
that big toe, then start rolling it down into the ball of your foot. and that's
where those tarsal muscles are around in here metatarsals and all that kind of
stuff, and so you really want to get each and every part. so all of that ball of
the foot down into the arch on the inside on the outside, but make sure you
go all the way down to the heel because that's where that plantar fascia
attaches, and a lot of times people have that heel pain. so I always say even just
kind of go past it a little bit but really get that whole area. you can go up
and down a couple times or you can just spend, you know, all your time in one spot,
move down, all your time in the next spot. going maybe again one to two minutes,
three if you want a little bit more. I'm doing it standing, that's going to give
me a little more pressure to push through the ball, so I feel really good
stretch with this. again if you're tender and in that plantar fascia, bottom of the foot,
you might want to start doing it sitting down in a chair,
so you don't have to put as much pressure on it. but still even standing, I
can do a little bit of pressure versus a lot of pressure. so it's really up to you.
you want it to be that hurt so good feeling. you don't want it to just be
painful the whole time. so make sure you're getting that whole bottom of the
foot there. so the third treatment is using some
sort of compression socks, and the folks at Eversport sent me their
compression socks for plantar fasciitis, and these are really cool. they have a
lot of great components too. And you can see that it is open at the toes. that
gives you a couple different benefits. one of it is just to kind of keep the
flow and your toes, so it's not so close up because you could put socks over this.
so then it prevents you know any kind of fungal infections and things like that.
it's got some nice compression here and here so it doesn't slide which I like
that as well. you can see here at the heel there's some reinforcement, and then
there's also some extra support at that arch. so a lot of times with plantar
fasciitis, that arch starts to fall a little bit and this just kind of helps
support it so it doesn't have so much pressure on it. and so these are really
great I like them because they're pretty versatile, like I said, again since
they're not these big huge things, you can put your regular socks over them
which is really nice if you want to, or you can just wear them as is. so that's
nice as well. again super comfortable, and you can see
that extra support there and that extra support there as well. so if you're
interested in purchasing the socks, make sure and click up here. so the fourth
treatment is really getting almost like a pre gait movement. a lot of times with
plantar fasciitis, what happens even if it's something coming at our hips or
knees, we end up not getting a normal gait pattern or a normal walking pattern.
and a lot of times I have with my patients and folks really doing an
exaggerated step. so hitting your heel first and really coming through on your
toes like this. so you can do that in slow motion, and you can really just stay
in one spot. so you don't necessarily have to do the heel strike to start off
with. I like to do the full going through like that, but you can really just kind
of start in this position and just roll up onto your toes.
so again it's really kind of working that first ray, that big toe, as well. you
want to keep your foot forward. if you're going out and getting pressured in
different spots on the outside, then you're not really getting that full
stretch. so a lot of times that what's what happens is people end up rolling
out on the outside of their foot, and they're not getting that good proper
follow-through. so just standing like this and doing, you can even use your arm
a little bit to give you an extra push forward, but really getting that exaggerated,
I'm curling my toes I'm going up on my toes movement. and again then if you want
to add in, you know kind of a heel. start here and push through. you can and do
that you know five to ten times. if that feels pretty good then you can kind of
bump up from there until you get to about fifteen or twenty and then you can
actually do the distance walking and really just exaggerate that heel to toe
strike just to loosen everything up. and so the last one is going to actually be
a plantar fascia massage. so I'm gonna sit down and show you how to do that. to
stretch out the plantar fascia, you really want to get the whole bottom of
the foot just like when you were rolling with the ball. you can stretch it out a
couple different ways, but what I like to do is really just use my thumb's to get
down in there. you can use a lotion or a cream if you want to so there's not as
much friction, but you don't have to use the lotion or cream if you don't want to.
what I usually like to do is start off just by taking my thumbs and pushing
right down the middle of that fascia and just get all the way to the end past the
ball of the foot. and then go out like that. so just doing that a couple times.
if you have some inflammation, you might feel those adhesions or scar tissue in
there, and where you feel that a little more it will probably be more sensitive,
and that just means you really need to work on that spot a little bit more. so
after you do this for about 30 seconds maybe a minute, then you're going to
start fanning outwards. so then I like to take the thumbs and then just go
outwards, just kind of fanning out and then once I get close closer to where
the those joints are in the foot, I like then pull a little bit too. so I'm just
kind of spreading out everything and then stretching out those joints a
little bit as well. so just moving through, going through the
top just getting that stretch starting all the way down at the heel, fan out
there, keep on going and so you really want to do this for about three to five
minutes. but a lot of times it's pretty uncomfortable, but that's really going to
get a good stretch. while you're here. you can even you know stretch out the toes
if you want to. you can take each joint and just kind of do some joint
mobilizations at the end as well, but taking each one and going up and down
just to get a lot of movement in there and flexibility in there as well. so you
can do that while you're massaging. I like to do that as well again just kind
of taking each joint of the toes and then getting that movement from side to
side. so that does a really nice job too and usually gets it feeling a lot better.
so one more time fanning out and then just going straight down that way. so if
you're interested in purchasing the Eversport compression socks, make sure you
click on the link up here. and don't forget to subscribe by clicking on the
link down here. and remember be safe (keep your plantar fascial feeling good), have
fun, and I hope you feel better soon.