Uncommon
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♦ 8 ♦
PLANTAR FASCIITIS &
ACHILLES TENDINITIS
 If you have been told you have plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendonitis, and that there is nothing that can be done, you have been misinformed. Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis are two conditions that I particularly like treating. They have similar causes of injury and have similar treatments which is why they are grouped together.
It is challenging to treat feet and ankles because we constantly walk on them. They are “weight bearing” and the weight of each step causes further damage. As a result, these conditions require extensive treatment for complete healing.
In my early 30s, I developed Achilles tendonitis. Since it is weight bearing, it didn’t heal as other injuries did. (This was earlier in my career before I treated a lot of sports injuries, so at the time, I didn’t have a comprehensive treatment plan. My experience with treating my own Achilles tendonitis helped to shape my sports-injury practice. These individual treatments were talked about in chiropractic school, but learning how to put them together in a comprehensive treatment plan took insight and experience learned on the job.)
I tried a few therapies, but a number of months went by without any healing. I had a couple of chiropractors work on my ankle, but the treatments were very inadequate. I paid a podiatrist $400 for custom orthotics - talk about a waste of money! I wore those orthotics for more than a year, which only served to shorten my Achilles tendon. (The orthotics raise the heel a little. If worn all the time the tendon will shorten some which causes new problems.) I had to abandon my lower body workout routine, and I wasn’t any better.
One day I said to myself, “I fix bodies for a living. I need to reevaluate what is happening here and fix myself.” So I did! What I discovered amazed me. The first thing I asked myself was “Why do my feet hurt so much in the morning when I get out of bed?” I thought about it, and I came to realize a few things about how muscle spasms react during sleep. I realized that my injured calf muscles were contracting and shortening overnight. As a result, the Achilles tendon was short in the morning. When I would take my first few steps with this shortened tendon, it would hurt and further damage the injury.
So I designed a homemade sleeping boot that prevented my Achilles tendon from contracting by keeping it the correct lengthened position all night long. (This boot is shown with other treatments in this chapter.) At first, I had to take the boot off after an hour because it would ache. Each night, I could wear the boot for longer periods of time. As soon as I was able to wear the boot through the entire night, I no longer experienced pain in the morning when I walked on it. This is very important because those early morning painful steps are the most damaging steps you take all day! In the treatment section I will teach you how to deal with this.
Next, I reviewed the treatments for various conditions such as ice vs. heat, massage therapy, etc., and I incorporated them into the comprehensive routine you will see in this chapter. After a short period of time, my foot responded very favorably and I was 100 percent healed. I was able to get completely back into a normal workout routine, and most importantly, I have helped many patients with Achilles tendonitis (and plantar fasciitis) because of my experience. It’s been almost 10 years since I developed this protocol. I have not come across any treatment program that is as comprehensive as it is.
If you have foot pain, heel pain, tendinitis or muscle spasm of the calf or foot, then you may have plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendonitis. In the book I discuss questions to ask your doctor, as well as the comprehensive treatment protocol which has both medical office treatments and the home treatments. There is a one page handout of the treatment that you will be able to print and use as a reminder. This is the same handout that I give my patients.
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