Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation of the fascia on the bottom of the heel. This causes heel pain that is worse when you get up in the morning and start walking. As you sleep, the tissue shortens, and when you stand up the tissue stretches back out.
I have had great success treating plantar fasciitis. It usually takes only a few treatments.
It is like walking on a nail.
Wearing shoes with a good arch support will help prevent this problem, but once you have it, what do you do?
I had plantar fasciitis when I was in acupuncture school, in 1997. I tried putting needles in my heel, with the idea that wherever it hurts, you can put a needle there. However, it did not help.
There is really no acupuncture book I have found that explains what is causing this problem. There are acupuncture points that are known to help heel pain, but knowing what is causing the problem makes it much easier to treat.
The pain is felt in the heel, but it is not caused by the heel area, that is the symptom of the problem.
Sometimes muscles in the foot or ankle can be tight, and cause heel pain.
But the most common cause of this problem is TIGHT CALF MUSCLES. I study trigger points in the book written by Dr. Janet Travell. She explains that the calf muscles are tight, which causes heel pain.
Treat the right calf muscles with acupuncture, and the muscles can relax, which relieves the pressure on the heel. She used dry needling, which is simply inserting hypodermic needles, but not injecting something in the muscle. Dry needling was a term she used to explain that some points were injected “wet”, and some where dry.
