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Need a little guidance with pain...

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W

wayliff

Lifer
My first language is spanish so I am having a hard time trying to find out why I have a certain pain and what I can do about it.

I've been running for about 5 months and I have recently been developing a pain located on my left foot's arch near the my heel.
LINK to Foot Trainer.

On the first picutre, the area, or near, the "Plantar Aponeurosis" is where I am experiencing this pain.

It starts to go away with rest and I don't feel it after I am warmed up and running but it is sore\sensitive\painful a few hours after running, during that day and the day after.

It is not constant or unbearable. Scale from 1 to 10. I'd say 6 when it hurts.

I just took a 4 day rest, started to run again yesterday and also helped coach some 8U soccer and it was quite sore last night.
I've also tried icing it two or three times during the last week.

Wondering if SC, or another guru, can help me figure what this is called so I can see I can do about it.

Thanks.

Edit:
BTW - I run with a pair of Brooks Adrenaline which are not worn out yet...or at least I do not think so.
 
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Sounds like mild plantar fasciatis (PF) to me. RICE works, rolling out the foot does too. I've heard that the socks they sell specifically for PF help, but I've never used one so I can't say for sure.

You may need an ortho or a different shoe. Have you had your gait/foot type analyzed and been custom fitted by an expert at your LRS (local running store)?
 
Megatomic said:
Sounds like mild plantar fasciatis (PF) to me. RICE works, rolling out the foot does too. I've heard that the socks they sell specifically for PF help, but I've never used one so I can't say for sure.

You may need an ortho or a different shoe. Have you had your gait/foot type analyzed and been custom fitted by an expert at your LRS (local running store)?
Click to expand...

I went to the local running store to get them to recommend what I should wear since I know from previous running attempts I needed that.
They put me on a foam (or gel) based 'scale?/machine' which I guess finds the pressure points on my feet, paints a graph on a tv and then the person recommended mid arch support shoes. They seem to know what they do. (http://www.onashoestringinc.com/)
In the past, I just ran with my 'tennis' shoes or whatever I had available.

Aha at least I know a name now...I will be reading about it! 🙂
 
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Walmart also has Dr. Sholls foot analysis machines that can sell you custom foot supports. My feet have high arches, very high instep and are short and wide. About like the rest of me. I am not sure the arches are the "best" out that they sell, but at $50 bucks and no other payments its at least a good place to start to see if they do help. They will last about a year before new ones under exercising conditions. I keep one set for daily use and one set for my exercise running shoes. I sometime feel many of those running shoe shops overcharge and are not professionals. At least around here most are just full of teens that will just read what the machines tell them and sell you some inserts without any knowledge of the human foot. So I rather just do Dr. Sholls and for really bad pains go see a real foot specialist.
 
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Yep, sounds like plantar fasciitis. However, you shouldn't roll it unless it's too short. If you roll it and your plantar fascia is too long (typically noted by flat arches), you'll make it worse. You should definitely look into stretching your calves too. Many people get plantar fasciitis because they don't have enough ankle dorsiflexion. That causes them to compensate by flattening out their arch (via their navicular drop), causing symptoms.
 
Thanks to all for your insight!

Another symptom I failed to mention is morning stiffness on that location of my foot.
I also did not mention that I also purchased shoe insoles with mid arch support and use them almost every day with my other shoes. I have felt some benefit from that.

This AM I wanted to run but skipped because I woke with stiffness there and had to just slowly get into the movement groove about 1 or 2 minutes...now it is all good. I figured I would have probably made it worse.

I will look into stretching my calves more. With my current running schedule, which is 3 times a week but is now suffering because of this, I was stretching my calves sacredly 6 times a week before and after running\sprinting. Each foot was being stretched for ~40 seconds...so I'll be looking to up that and do it even on days I don't exercise.
 
Doesn't sound like plantar fasciitis to me. Right location, wrong description of pain. Plantar fasciitis is most painful in the first steps of the day before you stretch things out a bit. Go see a podiatrist.

Edit: Actually, re-reading your post it sounds more like plantar fasciitis, going away a bit when you warm up and then ending up worse the next day. I was fooled a bit when you said it got better w/ rest. Need more caffeine. 😉
 
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interchange said:
Doesn't sound like plantar fasciitis to me. Right location, wrong description of pain. Plantar fasciitis is most painful in the first steps of the day before you stretch things out a bit. Go see a podiatrist.

Edit: Actually, re-reading your post it sounds more like plantar fasciitis, going away a bit when you warm up and then ending up worse the next day. I was fooled a bit when you said it got better w/ rest. Need more caffeine. 😉
Click to expand...

Lol, I was gonna say - that's almost exactly textbook plantar fasciitis. Location, worst in the morning, alleviates with some activity, and then begins to get worse.
 
I've had a pretty bad case of this. Sounds just like it to me. Stay with me for a second here. Picture the bottom of your foot like an iphone. Well your plantar fascia is a sheath/ligament that connects the ball of your foot to your heal. It would be the "screen protector" on your iphone. It may come up around the corners. Then it peels back further until it becomes loose or may even kind of flap around a bit.

Not to be cliche, but the standard RICE is the treatment for this. If it gets so bad that you find yourself just getting tired of the "in between" status and you are not making progress with healing, try taking like 2 weeks completely off (while still icing a few times daily and popping 4 ib's three times daily.) It is the typical nagging overuse injury.
 
Thanks for all the input.

Before it got too bad I decided to take two weeks off activity. This period ends on Sunday.

I think it has been improving. I've been icing it almost every day for 20 minutes and have been stretching/massaging it as well.

Hopefully that will take care of it, at least for the moment, and then we'll see what happens when I come back to exercise.
 
well tomorrow i am going back to running...we'll see how it goes.
It feels overall good but here and there it reminds me.
 
well i did a break-in run W6D1 of the C5k program and my foot was very unhappy about that...:\

The morning was a bit stiff, it had been feeling good the last few days.
After the workout, my foot was rather cranky...even with stretching before and after.

I will be doing some icing tonight again.
 
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