So after limping my way through a month of bad hikes and terrible runs, I went to an podiatrist and confirmed my fear – I jacked up my foot. Or as they call it in the medical world, Plantars Fasciitis. The plantar fascia is a tendon on the bottom of the foot that helps with the movement. ANd just like the Achilles on the other side of the heel, a lot of punishment to that area will cause the tendon to get stressed and fray – which can cause pain and inflammation. Unlike the Achilles, the plantar fascia takes all the weight of the foot when it hits the ground. Which, in the early morning, feels like your being stabbed with a knife the second it hits the floor.
I had apparently been riding this issue a little too long, because the podiatrist did an untrasound and saw that the tissue between the tendon and the heal was nearly twice as thick as that of my healthy foot. According to the doctor, this is likely scar tissue. So now I’ve got a regime at the physical therapist to follow if I want to get out of this situation – because resting did not make it go away.
I wanted to share the cool outcome of all this mess, which is that I went online shoe shopping and scored mightily. I first started this process by googling the highest rated plantars shoes, then I started searching ebay. To my suprise, I was able to land some insane deals.
The nice thing about these shoes is that the high arch feels fantastic, I wish I had clued in before all the foot problems that my arch need some extra help.