Treating Plantar Fasciitis in the Office and at Home. What are the best techniques?

The Dr. Chalmers Show Season #3, Episode 26 Part 2 - Treating Plantar Fasciitis in the Office and at Home. What are the best techniques?

This podcast and video is the second in the treating Plantar Fasciitis. Many patients ask about this, and there are solutions for the home and the office. Take a listen, watch the video, and ask questions at questions@chalmerswellness.com. I answer all questions.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Okay, So the way I treat Plantar Fasciitis in the office is I always start off with my version of the Charette Protocol to adjust the ankle. And so we adjusted, just kind of reset the joint, make sure it's where it's supposed to be.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:23] So now that the joints have moved around with activity, the joint thing where it is, where you compress the Achilles tendon all the way up into the active neurosis and into the calf muscle itself.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:34] And the reason is that I want to add the muscle spindle fibers, the Golgi-tuned organs, and the entire function of the neuro receptors in the whole lower extremity.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:42] So as we do that, we're going to have her point her toes over and over, pull it back as far as you can. Range emotions are very important in this so if they start to fatigue, make sure you get them to pull that toe back and point out as much as they can.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:55] And we don't want to stop we want to continue as they move and when we compress the ankle, just understand it's not the most comfortable thing in the world. So if they complain or you notice, it hurts, it's okay you want to be really uncomfortable you don't want to hurt. So we're just gonna compress it and point and pull, point and pull about this speed is what we're going to do.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:16] Now, what I'll usually do is, as I compress this, I'll feel the tendon if there are little nodules in here I'll work those nodules until I feel them break up but you can stand up and down like I said so we get a lot of the Golgi tendon organs in the Achilles.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:30] And then as we kind of come up and down pointing to the aponeurosis and we get a lot of those muscle spindle fibers and then we just keep coming up and down, move up just slide your hands up and down so I usually go up well do about five or six seven movements at each point you can come up and down.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:52] You can kind of figure out how your patient is kind of doing with it but as you kind of come up and down, you kind of notice that they squirm a little bit more or they just fatigue out and they can't do it so the first couple times to watch that but as they go along, they're going to get obviously better and better at this as the tone equalizes. So just let them do this like I said, I usually do this three times a week for about 3 to 4 weeks, and it works really well.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:17] Now, the big thing to understand is that if they're running, if they're walking if they're standing a lot while we're doing this, it's going to make it take longer. The more activation we get to the calf, the higher the tone stays.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:30] And so the whole point of this is to give a reason for the body to think, oh, no, this is too tight we're going to tear. Sends a message to the brain, the brain sends a message back down to the calleb and tells it to reduce its tone.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:40] As we're activating the Plantar Fasciitis this tone starts to come up and it starts to balance again and so that's the whole purpose of doing this.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:47] So as we go through it, if they're running a whole lot, they're trying to activate the calf more and tone of the cattle to more so it'll still work it just takes a little longer.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:56] That's my NFL guys we have to do this with and we have to do it all throughout the season because they're training so much that people who are training for marathons start to feel this come on, and they'll come in and we have to do this entirely until they're done with their training.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:08] So just remember that if you're activating the calf a lot, it's going to take longer. But like I said, most people have three weeks, about three times a week so that's the compression that's how we treat Plantar Fasciitis.