Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
Plantar Fasciitis is a common foot condition causing searing pain and limiting a person’s ability to walk for long periods of time. Suffering from this pain doesn’t have to last forever and with Cross Bay Physical Therapy, it is possible to treat plantar fasciitis and quickly alleviate your pain.
The first step before physical therapy is to make sure you have a proper footwear. You need sneakers that support your foot type such as sneakers that support flat feet or high-arched feet and you need prescription orthotics to provide foot support as well.
Stretching and Strengthening
Once you have the right shoes and foot supports, physical therapy will help you relieve plantar fasciitis. There are two things to do in Physical Therapy for plantar fasciitis, which is stretching and strengthening.
Stretching of the plantar fascia band, the achilles tendon, and the calf muscle is key to loosening the plantar fascia band so that it can heal and doesn’t continue to shrink causing tissue damage. Our Howard Beach physical therapists will teach you the essential stretches to apply both at home and in our state of the art facility.
Strengthening the plantar fascia band is also essential. Right now, in your current condition of plantar fasciitis, the plantar fascia band is weakened and cannot support your movements. Further, because of the weakness, the continued use creates more damaged. We need to reverse this weakness.
Here are a few strengthening exercises that help:
- Pencil and Coin Exercise - Place a penny underneath the big toe joint right on the ball of the foot. Then place a pencil underneath the arch of the foot. Make sure the pencil is not touching your foot. Then push the penny against the floor using only your big toe joint lifting the arch of your foot. Make sure you don't use any other toes when trying to press down on the penny. Repeat for 15 times the recommended number of sets.
- Barefoot Strengthening - Walk barefoot on your toes for 100 feet, then on your heals, then on one side of you foot and then on the other side of your foot. Doing this strengthens all of your foot muscles.
The goal of this treatment is to get rid of your plantar fasciitis condition. Our physical therapists will create a Physical Therapy program for you that will re-strengthen your plantar fascia band and eliminate this foot condition.
Call (718) 835-0084 and schedule your first evaluation today!
By Benjamin Bieber