Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common conditions that affects runners.
In fact, foot pain consistent with plantar fasciitis accounts for about 40% of all visits to the podiatrists in the United States each year.
Unfortunately, just because you think that you have plantar fasciitis, and you started doing some simple things to treat it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to get better.
If you are a runner, and you think you have plantar fasciitis, you must realize there are some avoidable mistakes you could make when trying to self-treat runner’s heel pain.
Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about the top five reasons runners heel pain doesn’t get better.
View Details »There are three key indications that tell me that somebody may not have plantar fasciitis, but probably have something else.
If you think you have plantar fasciitis, you may have a different form of runner’s heel pain. Treating the wrong condition will not get you back to running. Understanding the ways plantar fasciitis shows up can help you make sure you don’t have something else causing your heel pain.
What are the three best signs that your heel pain is not Plantar fasciitis?
Well, that’s what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
View Details »I just did a consultation call with an injured runner who had a really interesting history with his heel pain. There was some concern that he might actually have a calcaneal stress fracture and not a plantar fascia issue.
In case you don’t know, “calcaneal stress fracture” is just the medical term for a stress fracture in the heel bone.
The heel bone is the largest bone in your foot, and runners can sometimes develop a stress fracture in the heel bone.
They are relatively rare, but there are a couple of ways that you can get these stress fractures.
The good news is calcaneal stress fractures heal pretty quickly. But if you have one, you really don’t want to run on it.
How can a runner tell a heel bone stress fracture from plantar fasciitis?
Well, that’s what we’re talking about today on the Doc on the Run podcast.
View Details »Yesterday, I saw a runner who has plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis is the most common condition affecting the foot in runners.
When a runner gets plantar fasciitis, it is often because the plantar fascia ligament is too tight. The tight ligament becomes overstretched and strained. Heel pain is the result.
Since it is safe to assume that the plantar fascia ligament on the bottom of the foot is just way too tight, you may want to stretch it. But with every potential treatment comes risk.
Stretching the plantar fascia can be risky and has the potential to cause more trouble for a couple of reasons.
Today, on the Doc on the Run Podcast, we’re talking about two reasons that stretching the plantar fascia can be bad for runners.
View Details »Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common causes of heel pain and it’s also one of the most common reasons people actually go to the podiatrist. The fastest way to get it to calm down is to reduce the stress and strain to the plantar fascia ligament so that it’ll actually heal. So if you’re going to try to run, you have to do something to reduce the stress and strain to the plantar fascia ligament, while you’re running. Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about where to run when you have plantar fasciitis.
View Details »Today’s episode actually comes from something I read in one of the running forums where someone actually was saying that they were confused. They had been to see a couple of different doctors and had a couple of different recommendations because they had heel pain. The heel pain was in a little bit of an unusual area, the heel pain wasn’t exactly on the bottom, the heel pain wasn’t exactly on the back and it was sort of in the middle, right at the back of the heel where it curves around and they wanted to know what to do. Is it plantar fasciitis or insertional Achilles tendonitis? That’s what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run podcast.
View Details »I had a really great question from a patient on a second opinion webcam visit.
“I have a partially torn plantar fascia. Can I keep running and let it heal later?”
He had purchased The Runner’s Heel Pain course and based on his self-diagnosis, he concluded that he definitely did not just have plantar fasciitis. It was more likely plantar fasciosis with a small tear in the plantar fascia.
Unfortunately, the treatment that we would normally do and normally recommend for somebody with a partial tear in the plantar fascia, well, he just cannot do right now. He does not have time to actually take off of his activity and stop running completely right now.
Today on the Doc On the Run podcast, we’re talking about Torn Plantar Fascia: If I run can it heal it later?
View Details »A runner just asked a great question about when runners should get a plantar fasciitis injection so she can run.
If you’ve signed up for the Runner’s Heel Pain Course, or you’ve listened to the podcasts on Runner’s Heel Pain about plantar fasciitis in runners, you’ve probably heard me say that I don’t inject most runners with cortisone when they have plantar fasciitis.
The way I break it down is that it depends on one of three different scenarios.
“Should I get a plantar fascia injection so I can run?”
That’s what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
View Details »This episode comes from a medical conference last week.
I was asked to give a couple of different lectures on running injuries at the International Foot and Ankle Foundation meeting in Sonoma, California.
One of the sessions was about runner’s heel pain and the differences between normal everyday patients and runners.
Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about the top five differences between normal patients with heel pain and runners.
View Details »I was just doing a telemedicine call with a runner with a long history of plantar fasciitis, that has not been getting better. She had been doing stretches, icing, and even an injection of corticosteroids around the plantar fascia.
We were doing a second opinion telemedicine call to talk about what’s really going on. We talked about her whole history. She had been keeping track and has kept a pain journal.
During this one hour second opinion call, we figured out that she had been misdiagnosed.
We figured out she actually had bursitis on the bottom of the heel.
Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about plantar heel bursitis, misdiagnosed as plantar fasciitis.
View Details »