Foot Health

 

Maybe you did not notice, but I'm big into preventative healthcare.

But at times, even when we are taking care of ourselves, we can still have to face a health challenge.

Off and on, I like to jog, skip, and run. On and off, I would feel a twinge of pins and needles in my one foot. I realized I had some small injury going on in that foot.

Weeks later, still off and on jogging, I developed what appeared to be Plantar Fasciitis.  

Heel pain, tight feeling Plantar fascia on the bottom of my foot, and burning sensations on and/or near the heel. (Probably micro-tears in the fascia.) The pins and needles which was happening a bit probably was from swollen tissue surrounding my nerve.

And so, my first course of action was to rest it. That was easy to do, due to every time I walked on it; I was in pain.

I internet searched for stretches to help me heal the injury.

All in all, I read that you're supposed to rest, ice it, take pain relievers, and stretch in order to heal it.

But I actually found out my own regimen was better. 

I started to heal quicker than following the typical regimen.

I've had this injury for a month with a lot of pain, tenderness, and achiness in my heel area of my foot. I started my new regimen and I noticed a difference within the day of using each procedure.

Today, it's been about a month or so, and my foot is close to being achiness free and pain free. I still have stiffness, tightness, and some achiness but not like it was.

Here is my regimen that is helping me to heal faster:

• Rest/ no jogging, little or no exercise in the beginning, and limit walking.

 

• Stretch out the whole body, but put focus on the foot and leg muscles & ligaments. Every time you feel your foot feel pain and/or achiness, stretch your foot/leg. I did wall pushes every time I stepped out of bed in the morning. Every time it started to hurt, I stopped what I was doing and I would push the wall, stretching out that foot and leg. I'd get some immediate results.

 

• I performed Reiki on my whole body and providing extra Reiki for my foot. (Note, right after my Reiki session, my foot felt a lot less pain! I went from a #7 pain to a #3 in pain. Reiki helps with the pain, trauma, and stuck emotions. Reiki energy also helps to quicken the healing process.

 

• I started to walk outside with bare feet when the ground was warm enough. I walked about 2 city blocks on the dirt/grass ground. I just walked slow, allowing my feet to feel the ground. By walking barefooted, I was grounding myself and allowing the healing energy from earth to be absorbed into my feet and body. Each bare foot walk, I felt happy, grounded, and less soreness. Just be careful of sharp rocks, poker weeds, and of course dog poo. If your foot starts to hurt after wards, discontinue until you are more healed.

 

• I stopped wearing my new and old $170.00 athletic shoes! Why? I watched a video on YouTube with a foot doctor talking about Plantar fasciitis. 

• I started using a foot wrap to support my fascia so I would be less likely to re-injure my foot. I created a video to help share what I did to wrap my foot. 

I used 3M Coban wrap, athletic foam underwrap, and a medical tape such as paper tape or other. Notice I use a criss-cross wrapping of bottom of foot. The criss-cross helps to support the arch area and surrounding areas. This foot wrap has been wonderful! I had been easily re-injuring my foot even with simple walking. But this foot wrap and taking it easy on my foot has mainly stopped my foot from being re-injured. 

It's easy to over do it. For me, even walking 1/2 city block was too much for a while. So take it slow. Stop exercising for 1-2 weeks and rest. Stretch everytime your foot hurts. And slowly get back into exercising. While waiting for your foot to heal, try exercise ball routines, weight training, walk around your house or on a flat road,  Pilates, or yoga.

Video of wrapping my foot that helped me.

She was explaining why many well-known shoes, sandals, and athletic shoes were actually weakening our feet. Why they are unhealthy for us. Many athletic shoes today have around a 8-10 mm drop. This is the drop in my expensive two pairs of well-known athletic shoes that I thought were good shoes. I noticed when I stopped wearing my new and old athletic shoes and then started wearing them again, I developed hip pain and a funny feeling knee. The 8-10 mm drop means the heel is elevated up from the toes by 8-10 mm. And so, while walking or running, I'm walking or running in a unnatural way. My body is trying to make up for the elevated heel by pushing my gut out and my spine and upper body back. It's like wearing small high heels and trying to run in them!

 

I listened and I experimented. 

 

Knowing by walking on the dirt/grass ground with bare feet was actually helping me, I decided to ditch my athletic shoes and try to heal my foot/heel with my Earth shoes (Which is actually a negative drop shoe) and shoes that had very flexible soles and little cushion. The YouTube foot doctor said to stay away from cushion that is more than 30mm. She also said to move to zero drop shoes. My Earth shoes helped for a bit. They had flexible soles and they kept my spine aligned with my body. But the heel pain started to flare up again after wearing them for more than a day. 

Then I switched to a Zero drop sandal with little cushion and my flat leather tennis shoes I had on hand. My foot felt a lot better. 

 After a lot of research into what I was looking for (after being educated by the foot doctor), I went on the Internet and I bought my first pair of Barefoot athletic shoes. 

 

I decided to purchase Topo athletic shoe/ Magnifly 5. (I like how their company is open with their specs about the shoe. They tell you up front what to expect from that shoe. Many companies do not make it easy to find out the specs.)

I wore them around the house for an hour. Felt good. The shoe, immediately took away my pain in my heel! 

I have a narrow heel and so I was waiting for them to slide on me. But they never did. The cushion in the Magnifly 5 is 25mm thick. 

 In the past, I know when I have worn thin cushioned shoes, the bottom of my forefoot starts to really hurt. But When I slide these on, they felt so awesome! So comfortable.  I wore them exercising on a Precor equipment. My foot still felt good.

Then I finally took them out for a 1–2-mile stroll with my walking sticks. This stroll was through uneven fields. My shoes performed well! My foot was feeling o.k. 

 

I am not going back to standard athletic shoes. I am happy with my Topo athletic purchase. All though, I need to purchase a pair of hiking Topo athletic shoes for those hikes and jogs in the fields where there is uneven terrain.

Barefoot athletic shoes allow my toes to spread out- which feels great! No more squished toes.

They align my spine, which to me means no sore hips, knees or alignment injuries.

My foot is still healing, but I have found you need to just listen to your body/foot. If you over do the walk or exercise, your foot will let you know. 

I am still not jogging or skipping, but at least I'm able to do some exercise without re-hurting my foot. 

To stay healed, you must investigate what has helped you to create the injury in the first place. For me, it was jogging on overly uneven, long grassed fields, my shoes, and running on a slightly injured foot in the first place.

Take care!

 

By Cynthia Bergsbaken

 I, Cynthia am not affliated with any of the companies named here in this article.

Topo Athletic shoes https://www.topoathletic.com/

There are many other Barefoot athletic shoe companies out there to checkout.

YouTube Foot Doctor video

https://youtu.be/w2WerREnd6k?si=HMN5WZYjjhkuTnKb

Walking poles

www.skiwalking.com

Disclaimer by Reiki in the Prairie LLC and Cynthia Bergsbaken copyright 2015

I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or medical doctor.  These articles I have written, are from reading and experiencing them.  Many of these articles are my own experiences with my own inventions to heal as well.

If you have a medical condition-physically/mentally/emotionally, please see a qualified medical doctor.  Do not substitute my articles for proper medical care.  You are too important to the world.

I have used all procedures I have written about and have found them to be helpful as tools to help myself become a better person.   I am sharing them with you because used as a tool, they are helpful in Shadow working on ourselves.  (Shadow working is healing our inner shadows that are unconscious or subconscious.  Inner shadows are our belief systems, our thoughts, our behaviors, our life experiences.)

I created this blog for my Reiki clients originally.  Combining these tools with Reiki creates a happy, healthy person.  These tools, when used alone are also beneficial!

 

 

***All original content is copyrighted by Cynthia Bergsbaken, Perceptive Blogger & Reiki in the Prairie LLC.

Reiki in the Prairie LLC is a legal Entity under law, 2015.

April 11, 2020

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