Specious Name Plantar Fasciitis

More Acurately Acute Morning Heel Pain

specious

adjective

superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

– Google Dictionary

I love to read, and learn new words.

I’d seen the word specious many times.

This is the first time I’ve used specious in any kind of narrative. It sure fits so-called plantar fasciitis.

Pain book is finally published in e-book format. Paperback on the way.

Click image to purchase from Amazon.

For a number  of years, I’ve been researching the condition widely and incorrectly known under the name plantar fasciitis. My work, so far, sits out there as a rarely read ebook on Amazon.

As a pathologist, I’m aware that the name should describe the disease, as far as possible, and the name plantar fasciitis most certainly does not. Think about it, over a nice hot cup of tea.

I prefer the more appropriate term Acute Morning Heel Pain. During a second attack of this horribly painful condition, I had an epiphany. A fortunate insight. This second, and unwelcome, pain turned out to be a rare opportunity to carry out targeted research.

An epiphany: During recovery from my second bout of acute morning heel pain, I observed that I could induce the characteristic stabbing morning pain by sitting on my hamstrings (the muscles at the back of your thighs that flex your knees and rotate your calves) for a few minutes! In fact, this worked any time during the day. Furthermore, this discomfort could be rapidly eliminated by stretching the hamstring muscles of the affected leg. Such an observation contradicts most people’s belief that so-called plantar fasciitis is due to inflammation of the plantar fascia (the ligament running along the bottom of your foot, connecting your heels to your toes).

As scientists are wont to do, I came up with a working hypothesis:

So-called plantar fasciitis is a progressive condition. In its early stages, it is a nociceptive, or neural (nervous system), response to body movement stresses. A warning of worse to come, including tissue damage, if you don’t change the way you move!

Acute morning heel pain is best treated by changing the way one moves. Not with expensive and dangerous heel injections or irreversible surgery!

Body movement changes worked for me. Especially for a short-lived third attack of heel pain, during a tough bike ride several years later. I thought, Oh! No! Not that! and dropped my heels. Then I released an associated calf muscle by applying gentle pressure, with my thumb, to the body of a specific calf muscle (posterior tibialis) that   elicited more severe heel pain. I felt the muscle relax a little, and the heel pain was gone in moments.

So I rode on!

Click image for link to the Interactive Map.

Consider each of the dozens of recommended, and often expensive, treatments available for so-called plantar fasciitis, on the FitOldDog Interactive Treatment Map. You will note that each treatment has the potential to induce major or minor modifications to one’s movements. Other than that, they have little in common.

If something doesn’t make sense to you, there’s something you don’t know!

A word to the wise:

If you experience acute morning heel pain, consider changing the way you think and move!

OK! Back to those edits.

Wishing you happy feet and happy trails,

kev aka FitOldDog