Hey, guys, Dr. Axe here.
Today I'm going to share with you my secrets to curing plantar fasciitis, and I can tell
you from being a tri-athlete myself, over the years I've struggled with injuries and
pain like plantar fasciitis and ITB syndrome and other injuries that for most people they
have to live with for a long time.
But what I did was I did research and found the natural cures and natural ways to really
improve plantar fasciitis.
Now, there are four secrets to curing plantar fasciitis.
Number one, doing deep tissue work on the area; number two, stretching; number three,
there are actually nutritional foods and supplements that can cure plantar fasciitis; and last
but not least, strengthening the muscles of your feet.
So let me go through the four ways that you can cure your plantar fasciitis.
Number one, deep tissue massage.
You can hire a massage therapist or the cheapest, most effective way to do it is either get
a tennis ball or a baseball at home, or my favorite is a rolling pin, and put this right
under your foot here like so.
You can do this barefoot or with a sock on, and really just kind of going deep over time,
stretching out that tendon.
What happens when you have plantar fasciitis, that tendon and fascia becomes very, very
tight and it starts to stretch out, just like if you pulled a muscle on your low back or
let's say your neck.
Getting deep tissue massage breaks up the scar tissue, relaxes the muscles.
So going back and forth about two minutes at a time, really just kind of getting in
that one little area like so.
That is the number one thing you can do to help cure your plantar fasciitis.
And I would do this twice, two to three times a day for about two to five minutes.
Start off at two.
Work your way up to five minutes.
The second thing you want to do to cure your plantar fasciitis is do deep stretching.
I would go and get a block, or a set of stairs is the easiest way to do this.
And really, again, find a set of stairs and really just kind of stretch that area.
Lean up against there, so doing deep stretching of that plantar tendon.
The third secret to curing plantar fasciitis, and by the way this is very, very important,
is getting certain nutrients in your body that help relax tendons.
Those nutrients are: number one, magnesium.
Magnesium is essential, doing about 500 mg a day.
I would do 500 mg right before bed.
That relaxes that muscle.
That's the number one nutrient for healing plantar fasciitis.
Also, along with magnesium, doing vitamin B5.
It's called pantothenic acid.
That's been shown to help relax the muscle and help heal the plantar tendon.
Number three is fish oil.
Getting more Omega-3s in your diet can also help heal that area.
So remember magnesium, remember vitamin B5 and also doing, as we talked about, fish oil,
and then vitamin C can also help with the absorption of B5, another good thing to do.
But make sure you're following an anti-inflammatory diet.
Getting those supplements will help relax that plantar tendon.
And last but not least, one of the main causes of plantar fasciitis is actually not wearing
the right type of shoes and having weak foot muscles.
Our bodies were meant to be moving barefoot.
That's our original design, walking barefoot, where a lot of these shoes today cause us
to compensate and only use certain areas of our foot, and so actually most of our feet
muscles get weak.
So actually walking around barefoot or switching over to barefoot shoes, these are the original
Vibram shoes that I have, these sort of barefoot shoes.
They really actually strengthen your tendon.
Now what I wear today are these Merrells, which don't have the five fingers but they
still have these Vibram bottom.
So this is more of a barefoot shoe.
Wearing barefoot shoes will help strengthen your calf muscles.
It'll help strengthen one of those many, many little muscles within your feet.
It's going to help raise your arch.
So that's actually going to help strengthen your foot, long-term help improve your plantar
fasciitis.
And by the way, slow into this when you're wearing barefoot shoes.
I recommend just starting off one hour, maybe even 30 minutes during the day.
Over time, kind of work your way up.
A lot of people do barefoot running today.
You may even work into that a little bit.
But just remember this.
There are four cures to fix your plantar fasciitis.
Number one, as we've talked about, doing deep tissue rolling on the area with either a tennis
ball or a rolling pin.
Number two, doing that stretching for about a minute to three minutes, two to three times
a day.
Number three, nutrition.
Listen, your body needs certain vitamins and minerals to relax the muscle.
Magnesium and fish oil are very, very important as we talked about, and vitamin B5.
And last but not least, switch the shoes you're wearing.
Start getting out, walking barefoot, wearing barefoot-like shoes.
If you do those four things, you're going to relieve that pain there in that tendon
that can get so tight, and you're going to relieve plantar fasciitis.
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