When did you get Plantar Fasciitis, what was the cause?

1) I don’t remember doing anything specific to make it happen. It was steadily more painful until I finally saw a doc, and the doc sent me to Physical Therapy for a couple weeks.

Exercise and ibuprofen.

It went away completely; haven’t suffered from it for at least 15 years.

@elbanditoroso so it did not have to do with you possibly walking around barefoot at home, did it?

@ZEPHYRA not at all. The doc never was able to pin it down to anything. He suggested different shoes (with softer soles).

I had it in both feet when I played soccer. I would keep frozen water bottles in the freezer and roll/stretch my feet out on them after I played. Eventually went away. My mom has it in one foot now and gets cortisone shots for it.

I speed walk for exercise, and it has led to plantar faciitis 3 times. Each time, I’ve had to completely stop exercising, and it eventually healed. I haven’t had it for about a year or more, and I think it’s the shoes I use now. I got really good running shoes.

I had it about 12 years ago. They didn’t really know the cause. I had to do at home physical therapy. It was gone by 6 months and has never come back.

I got it after years of walking around on concrete surfaces with inadequate padding in my shoes. I eventually got rid of it through extra cushion and massage and NSAIDs. Interestingly, though, my doctor showed me a quick way to ease the pain. He was into acupuncture and acupressure and showed me two options. The first was to pinch the area between the thumb and first finger on my right hand. This really didn’t work for me, though he said it was a good pressure point. He then reached up and lightly pressed right under my left eye…sort of on the bottom of the eye socket. The pain immediately stopped and remained gone for most of the day. It was amazing. I showed this to a co-worker who had bad plantar fasciitis to the point of having surgeries and wearing the boot at night. It worked for her as too.

I had suffered for a couple of years taking shots (needles) in the arch of my feet. Had Ibuprofen which caused slower metabolism thus gained a lot of weight which compounded the problem in the first place.
One day I got rid of my sneaker ( just bought 6 months before to one year) before all of it went away! It was wrong shoes (runners built for males?/) and got off that ibuprofen and with a short period of six months lost a lot of weight, felt great and hikes a lot .
BTW the Physical Therapy didn’t solve the problem only the short term pain!! I stopped that after I had a talk with Physio Therapist and asked if she was addressing the cause not just the effect? Turned out they were only treating the effects.
Good idea if overweight..lose the weight ( I did slim fast for two meals breakfast and lunch and had a normal supper and lost 33 pounds quick).
The Gym was not that helpful so i went outdoors with my camera and hiked and had fresh air etc
Walked first only short trails and back and everyday would challenge myself to go up hill
( slant)on my hikes and that helped..no foot problems since.
Good luck and I know how painful it is to have Plantar Faciitis. The shots helped only for a day or two..and it was painful to take those. Happy to be better and best to be fitted for all shoes and as you lose weight you may need another pair as well.

So glad you asked this question. A man who sells $400 insoles was in his booth next to my daughter’s cupcake in a jar booth (yes; she made cupcakes and put three in a jar for $5 a jar back then) told her I should get the small soda bottles and fill them with water then freeze. When frozen he said I should roll them under my foot for five minutes , three times a day. In less than two weeks I was cured.

It’s always been running in cheap/worn shoes and not stretching first in my case. I have had it several times. I never had to stretch in my youth but past about age 35 that changed. I can clear it up in a month or so by stretching before I get out of bed, taking fish oil and wearing good shoes.

I had it some years ago, and it lamed me pretty badly. I never knew what caused it, although at the time I was walking a lot on city sidewalks in ordinary flats and loafers. I thought my heels must have got horribly bruised somehow, but the doctor diagnosed plantar fasciitis, which I had never heard of.

It probably would have helped if I’d stopped those daily one-mile walks when the pain began.

The doctor prescribed cushioned insoles and Vioxx, an NSAID for pain that was later pulled off the market (that’s how long ago this was). They both helped.

I had to buy a larger size shoe to use the insoles, so I bought only one or two pairs and got pretty tired of them. I also got tired of taking the pain pills. I don’t like pills anyway. After a year, I simply quit, and I guess the p.f. had gone away sometime during that year. I put the cushioned shoes aside too and went happily back to my old ones.

The downside of the meds was that when I stopped taking them, all the aches and pains they’d masked for a year were back in full force. I had to get used to them all, all at once.

If I ever feel heel pain like that again, though, I’ll take steps (haha) right away.

Someone else told me she’d had p.f. and it never came back once she got rid of it. And another person said hers had flared up every few years over a long period of time.

I damaged my foot by mashing a soda bottle with my bare feet the day before going to Universal Studios. I used a walker for the first day, but switched to an electric cart on day two. When I returned home, my doctor had me buy shoe inserts, and a couple of weeks later, i bought some very expensive orthopedic shoes. They were so clunky, I only wore them a couple of months but I found a great pair of walking shoes on sale at Big 5 Sports. With the inserts, I have not had any pain since.

My husband developed it 4 years ago. He suffered for almost two years. What cured it was him finally spending more on shoes with better arch support, and always wearing shoes. At home he has slip-ons that have arch support. For his old shoes he uses an insert. He doesn’t wear his old sandals that had no support, because he can’t use an insert with those sandals.

I make him take some vitamin D (he had been right near borderline low when it started) and I sprayed magnesium on his feet when it was at its worst.

He doesn’t have any pain anymore. I think the arch support was the biggest factor to getting rid of the pain. You have to look at the shoes the same way you would buying medicine—spend the money. I think he spent $220 on a pair of sneakers, new sandals and the house shoes combined, and the only thing he has had to replace in two years were the sneakers very recently, because he wears them almost daily. Worth every penny.

Thank you all for the well – informed an informatived answers.

This is a baffling injury. I’ve been a competitive long distance runner for over 30 years (completed 59 full marathons). I’ve had just about every running injury except plantar fasciitis. A running buddy of mine was also a medical doctor asked me what he should do about his plantar fasciitis. I had no answer for him other than to stop running and see a podiatrist. He completely stopped running and took up photography.

The cause is falling arches and one can suffer from it at any age, but it would seem the older we get the more likely we might have the problem. I have suffered with it, and the pain was awful and I could barely walk by the time I went to a podiatrist. If you think you have it go on and go to the doctor before it gets worse….it will get worse. I had cortisone shots in both feet for about a month, every week or so. He also put me on celebrex which almost killed me so I always tell people not to take any of the cox-2 inhibitors; opt for something else. He also made a custom orthotic for me to put inside my shoes so my arches would have support. Once I got well I’ve never had problems again. I don’t go barefoot on hard surfaces though.