Plantar Fasciitis
Do you have pain in the bottom of your foot? Could it be plantar fasciitis? Could it be something else?
The plantar fascia is one of the layers of your foot. It spans most of the bottom of the foot from your heel to your toes. It is an important structure for the mechanics of the gait cycle.
Since the term “plantar fasciitis” is commonly known, it can be frequently misdiagnosed. Two important criteria for a diagnosis of plantar fasciitis is:
Pain is located just in front of the heel bone on the bottom of the foot
Pain is felt when first walking after getting out of bed, but it “warms up” after a while.
If either of these sounds like you, you may have plantar fasciitis.
So what do you do? Once again, early intervention, load management, and strengthening are key. The plantar fascia heals during rest. One common strategy I give to patients is warming up the foot before getting out of bed. This helps reduce the amount of irritation to the newly developing tissues.
Here are some of the exercises we have patients do to “warm up” before getting out of bed.
1️⃣ Ankle CARs
2️⃣ Toe Waves
3️⃣ Toe Curls
4️⃣ Toe Yoga
5️⃣ Seated Calf Raises
6️⃣ Standing Calf Raises
Check out @dr.jeffwong on Instagram for videos of these exercises!