Plantar Fasciitis

Hi, I have just joined this fantastic site, and thought I was so lucky to have found it only a few weeks after my plantar fasciitis symptoms started, read Dr Sarno's book Healing your Backpain and within a few days my symptoms had almost abated. I have had intermittent mild back pain over the years, but just put that down to not being very fit. I never thought that I had a great deal of anxiety, but obviously do after reading and listening on here, as I always see the worst situation in anything. Interestingly, I have been listening to Annies story today from the audio last June and could relate strongly and my feet are hurting again. I broke my wrist last year and ended up with what my doctor said was a frozen shoulder, from the wrist being mobilized, which is almost back to normal after 8 months of exercising it daily and acupuncture, now thinking probably TMS too. I'm glad I have been able to control my feet issues, but now feel like I've opened up a can of worms about my anxiety which has been worse since my feet are feeling better, waking up in the mornings with tightness in my chest now. Looking forward to keep working through this site, I am thinking now should I see a TMS counsellor for the anxiety as I feel this is going to be a lot harder to resolve than my feet were, although there don't seem to be many in Australia, any advice is appreciated

 

Hi Shar and welcome!

When I started on this journey, I was surprised and also relieved to learn that anxiety is considered to be a TMS equivalent by Dr. Sarno and other practitioners. The problem for those of us with lifelong chronic anxiety is that Dr. Sarno doesn't really address it deeply, and where he advises using physical exercise to get through the fear and expectation of pain, anxiety sufferers really need mental exercises to get over our fear and expectation of doom. The second book I read, after Dr. Sarno, was Hope and Help For Your Nerves by the very wonderful Australian doctor (now no longer with us) Claire Weekes, and it really helped me a LOT. Check it out!

Jan

 

Plantar Fasciitis- been there, done that. But didn't know about Dr. Sarno until I had lower back pain, 10-15 years later. After dealing with that and reading that PF was caused by essentially the same thing, did the symptoms mostly subside.

 

Thankyou Forest, Jan and Charcol for your replies, coincidentally I reserved Claire Weekes book at the library yesterday, looking forward to reading it now, thanks Jan and have also started on the Structured Program.

 

absolutely this is very true if you look at the treatments for anxiety and TMS they are virtually identical. the reasoning for both is pretty much identical as well. enrique's story is a really good one to read because he's overcome TMS pain twice and he had plantar fasciitis. I was diagnosed with it as well back in 2005. i definitely recommend reading some of the TMS books like The Great Pain Deception, the Sarno Books, etc. I also started learning a lot more about anxiety in the last couple months which I highly recommend. Once you know a good amount about TMS and you learn about anxiety as well, you'll see how similar they are and it gives you more confidence in treating it.

It's absolutely imperative that you accept TMS and anxiety are the cause of your symptoms. To this day I still struggle with this and I know it's the big reason I still have chronic pain. It's extremely hard to get to this point but what I'm doing now is introducing TMS knowledge into my brain on a daily basis. A thing I just started today was listening to success stories for TMS when I'm doing deep relaxation. When you're deeply relaxed your subconscious is more open to suggestion and I think listening to success stories in this time is a good idea.

 

Hi Shar
Welcome here..I found TMS due to my never going away plantar fascitis/tendonitis in my feet and I am not walking 2 miles daily and I am almost 80% better. I have had terrible anxiety as soon as that started getting better. I will write a personal message later today but meanwhile PLEASE check out Claire Weekes's book and tape Help and Hope for your nervers and Pass through Panic. They greatly help. I am listening to them often. Take care and good luck

 

Thankyou for all the replies, look forward to hearing from you CMA, Sharon

 

In the last 3 years, I have experienced 2 quick cures for my feet and back pain. One happened 3 years ago when I first read 2 of Dr. Sarno's books. This "cure" lasted about 2 years, during which time I experienced anxiety and various other symptoms (TMS equivalents), but did not know what they were. About 1 year ago, I experienced a bad recurrence of my pain. Then, I reread Dr. Sarno's books, but the pain did not go away completely. Then 4 months ago, I joined this forum and another similar one. This time, I became pain free within one month. However, my anxiety went through the roof and I couldn't sleep. I became really strung out about the sleep problems. Right now, my anxiety has lessened and I am sleeping ok, but I having a milder recurrence of my pain. I am doing ok with the pain this time now that I know what it is. It s really hard to avoid thinking of the pain as physical and keep focused completely on the mental. I feel as though I am constantly having shifting symptoms, but I believe this is part of the healing process. Knowledge, relaxation techniques, books and EFT have been extremely helpful for me.

 

Hi guys,
I would like to comment the following statement of M.D. Sopher regarding plantar fasciitis: "Here is something to think about: why should the incidence of foot pain be increasing now? It makes no sense. We are not strolling about on rocky, uneven trails, barefoot, like our ancestors did. We are not shod in rudimentary footwear, lacking cushion or support. In fact, I would argue that the footwear industry has done an incredible job of providing us with supremely comfortable and affordable shoes. ... The choices are dazzling. Now people are getting foot pain? How does this make sense at all?
It is true that the Plantar Fasciitis is an epidemic and looking for success stories I have observed that people overcome this injury when they started exercising again. Some people start walking barefoot (Look at the best seller "Born to Run") or doing calf raises or by accepting that the plantar fasciitis is a TMS.
Maybe the very supportive shoes and the orthotics make the intrinsic foot muscles dormant and as a result the foot get injured. The chronic tendonitis becomes tendinOSIS which means that there is not any inflamation but this tissue is not very elastic lacks of strength. Clearly the rest will not help for tendinosis.
To sum up:
Facts:
1) Plantar fasciitis is an epidemic
2) We use more supportive and cushion shoes
3) Rest does not help for the chronic cases
4) Strengthening exercises usually help.
My question is. Is it possible that the plantar fasciitis is due to the very supportive shoes and not a manifestation of TMS.

 

I think that PF can be caused by too much support or shoes that aren't flexible. The human foot is anatomically meant to be used against the floor directly without much in between (lots of cushioning). Too much support in the shoe tends to weaken the feet. I can imagine that trying to jump into running on feet weakened from years of big, cushioned, inflexible shoes would tend to cause issues like PF.

That being said, it's pretty clear that running barefoot or in minimalist shoes and not having the proper adaptations in the foot can also be very bad. This is why so many people are injured from the whole barefoot running fad. I myself fell a little victim to this by not adapting my feet enough and then getting some foot pains. I've gone back to some more cushioned shoes now and don't have the same foot pain issues. PF is a TMS symptom also. Dr Sarno notes it in his books and so do many other TMS docs and therapists (Sopher, Monte Hueftle, etc). Dr Sarno, in fact, writes that most people have a hard time believing that PF can be a TMS symtpom, but it is. From a personal perspective, before I found out about TMS, I suffered from PF pretty much every time I tried to run. Once I learned about TMS, I never got it again and realized that it was most likely just a Pavlovian-type of conditioning that was going on. Thankfully, like I said, I haven't had PF since 2007. I've had some other issues, but not PF.

I think the smart thing for a person to do is to make changes slowly. For example, a newby runner, should make sure to get the right kind of shoe for their gate-type. Then they should ease into running. Start by doing a walk/jog. Walk a minute, jog a minute, walk a minute, jog a minute, etc. Being conservative like this allows the feet, legs, hips, etc to adapt.

If there are pain symptoms with this slow progression, back off, rest a day or two and start again. If pain symptoms continue, or get worse, I'd see a TMS doc to rule out a physical issue. If no issues are present, then treat as a TMS manifestation and continue with the run program.

 

The best my body feels is playing tennis barefoot on grass courts.