The next step in Plantar Fasciitis

My issues with plantar fasciitis have spanned more than a decade, but this recent bout with it has been going on for about 8 months now. I've just made the decision to bail out of the Surf City Half Marathon since my pain from running was escalating rather than improving. The last race I was in was July, which means I've been on the sidelines for a good 7 months now.

I'm very certain I could end the pain in my feet in a few seconds given a chainsaw, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and someone to clean up all the blood, but that might cause some undesirable issues. As opposed to something that radical, my coach suggested something earlier this week called "dry needling," and I (of course) responded that it scared the hell out of me. The concept is similar to acupuncture, in that needles are inserted into your body, but unlike acupuncture, the purpose is not to cause changes in the energy systems of your body, but to actually do physical things to your muscles. In some cases, dry needling is actually supposed to cause damage, so that your body can heal itself properly--and in other cases, it's supposed to actively release muscles by stimulating trigger points in them. A case study I found piqued my interest--by repeatedly puncturing the plantar fascia, a trial produced a 95% cure rate for its subjects. Anyone who has dealt with plantar fasciitis is likely to understand that this is probably 94% higher than most conventional methods for dealing with it.

It turns out that the state of California is in the dark ages when it comes to dry needling. Our government explicitly bans the practice by physical therapists, who are the health care professionals that do this in at least some other states in our country. So, I started looking to see if I could find acupuncturists that perform this procedure, and I came up dry (pun very definitely intended). I gave up on this glimmer of hope for rapid recovery, and focused on what I've been doing--stretching, strengthening, and more not-running.

Joanna, my triathlon coach, wound up suggesting to me to give a straight-up acupuncturist a try--and very correctly identified that the myriad of issues that I have might be aided by this type of treatment.  Stress, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and long term pain have all been shown to be improved by acupuncture.  I really like that she was able to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and wake me up by pointing out to me what might be glaringly obvious to some people--"You have bigger issues than your foot."  Well, she didn't quite say it that way, but that pretty much sums it up.

So I redoubled my efforts in looking for an acupuncturist--and failed again this morning. I posted on Facebook wondering if any of my friends knew of anyone they'd recommend, and it turns out that Brian was the person to respond, and his recommendation is an athlete that's a licensed acupuncturist who has experience treating plantar fasciitis through trigger point dry needling. Sometimes the answers lie a lot closer to home than you think they do.

I'm looking forward to getting in for an appointment--and maybe fixing some of my issues.  More posts to come!