After last year's Caminos I have been diagnosed with a calcium growth on my heel. I don't know why but it hurts more some times than others. I am doing the stretching suggested by the quack but it doesn't make much difference. It is interfering with any training for this year's planned Camino Madrid.
Anyone else have this problem?
Just returned from 6 days in Barcelona where I found that it caused me some problems while walking around.
So I am getting concerned about this year's walk.
(Mind you I did have a bad cold and was therefore permanently tired and in lower than normal spirits. Though they were raised when greeted back Tuesday afternoon by my youngest daughter who promptly persuaded me to go with her to Granada to visit the Alhambra in two weeks time. Flights booked even before I left her!) So some hill and heat walking practice soon?
Seriously though. I am now thinking the Frances from Pamploma might bean advisable option instead of the Madrid/Frances this time. That way I have much more opportunity to have shorter days/transport as I find necessary.
Al, I'm so sorry to hear this. For what it's worth I will throw in my experience. Some years ago I developed pain in one of my heels while on a business trip and saw an orthopedist as soon as I got home. She x-rayed the foot and announced that the bad news was that I had plantar fasciitis but the good news was that I didn't have a bone spur. She said I wanted to avoid getting a bone spur because that would require a cortisone shot, which is quite painful, and that surgery on bone spurs rarely works well. She gave me a prescription for ibuprofen, physical therapy, heel cushions, directions to wear only well-supported shoes, and a pamphlet to read. The pamphlet had critical information: it said when there is inflammation in the body the body's response is to send calcium to that area. The calcium builds up and forms a bone spur.
That is why it is so critical to take the ibuprofen when there is inflammation. I took the drugs and had the physical therapy for a long time. It seemed to do nothing. The heel cushions, however, were a godsend. I could walk anywhere with the cushions.
As a fluke, some months later I was reading a magazine while waiting in the dentist's office and read that the number two cause for Americans to see an orthopedist the year before (1998) was for plantar fasciitis. Following this little article was an effective exercise for this problem, pulling the big toe toward the body and holding for 30 seconds three times. This was not part of the physical therapy I had received. Well, I did the exercise and it completely cured the problem. I have to keep it up or I start getting tight in the arch of my foot.
Shortly after the diagnosis I was buying ugly, well-supported shoes in the ugly shoe store and struck up a conversation with another customer. She was a geologist who walked the fields daily. She had developed plantar fasciitis and ignored it. She developed a bone spur, had to have the cortisone shot (was painful, she said), and now had prescription orthotics, which was the only way she could manage her problem, but it was managed. She said she was doomed to wear ugly shoes (no high heels) the rest of her life. I, on the other hand, have not had to wear the heel cushions for many years.
Then, again in physical therapy for a frozen shoulder, I mentioned to the new physical therapist about the great exercise I had learned for plantar fasciitis. She cut she me short and said, "it's the toe pulling one isn't it?" Of course it was. Sit on a chair or couch, pull the knee up on the edge of the couch and pull the big toe toward you. Hold for thirty seconds, repeat two more times. You will feel the pull in the arch. Do this twice daily.
I suspect you will have to get prescription orthotics, drugs or shots, and continue the exercises. I work with someone now who recently got her orthotics ($400.) and it is taking her quite a while to adapt. So, get them and begin breaking them in. I hope this information helps you and any others dealing with plantar fasciitis.
