My wife has been experiencing a great deal of pain in her heel for over a year now, and has so far been unsuccessful in finding successful ways (that are reasonable) to manage the pain. The pain comes and goes, from mild to quite severe, and she does have days in which it is difficult for her to be on her feet at all.
My wife lives a fairly active lifestyle, and is on her feet most of the day. She discovered that she had really been enjoying running as part of her training when the pain finally got so bad that she decided to see someone about it.
About 6 months ago, she was diagnosed by an orthopedist in our home town with plantar fasciitis, and has been following his advice in terms of treatment. His diagnosis has been somewhat confusing to me and, based on my own readings here and elsewhere, is providing a narrative that isn’t very helpful. Based on imaging (X-rays) that neither of us saw and his own intuition, he asserted that there was “bone damage”, that he refers to as “tiny fractures”, caused by the plantar fascia “pulling” on the bone. He recommended a 2-phase approach: after an initial 6-week period of complete rest (wearing a restrictive boot) to “heal the fractures”, she was given fairly aggressive stretching and kneading tasks to perform every day to “stretch out” the plantar ligament. This is where she is now; she has been cleared to resume normal activity (including running), and has been instructed to perform the stretching and kneading activities pretty much every day from now on.
Aside from the secondary issues caused by the boot (lots of them), the period of complete inactivity appeared to help the pain, but shortly after returning to normal use, the pain returned, and has been back to its original intensity for at least several weeks now. She’s performing the stretching and kneading routine very diligently, but it doesn’t appear to be addressing the pain at all. She did return to running, but with nowhere near as much regularity as before.
I have my own ideas about how she should address this issue, but I make no claim to be an expert in pain management, and it can be very challenging to push against advice given by “professionals”, especially when doing so with loved ones.
I think she could very much benefit from a consult with one of you, but I wanted to post this and see if you agree that it’s a good fit for a consult before spending the money. As Michael Ray knows, I recently had an extremely positive experience with my own month-long consultation, but money is very tight, and if you all don’t feel like this is a good fit, we can turn our focus elsewhere.
Thanks so very much for everything you all do.