Health & Wellness

Happy Feet

by Amanda Bedgood

A new tool to beat runner‘s pain

A sock can actually change your life. Plantar fasciitis can be brutal for a runner - severe pain some compare with a broken foot that sends many to the doctor for injections and eventually surgery. A new foot sleeve could change that outcome.

Runners like Kevin Miller, manager at Tri Running, have dealt with bouts of plantar fasciitis - pain and inflammation of the thick band of tissue on the bottom of the foot that connects the heel bone to the toes and creates the foot‘s arch - and look for relief and prevention without ever heading to a doctor‘s office. Enter the Feetures Plantar Fasciitis Sleeve.

"It‘s a newer thing that came along with the compression craze," Miller says.

The sock is a compression foot sleeve with technology that lifts and stabilizes the plantar fascia to improve circulation and relieve pain. It can be worn day and night and while running. There‘s no such thing as an overdose.

"Good blood in and bad blood out," Miller explains. "It‘s less irritation in the beginning and faster healing from speeding up blood flow. You just wear the sock and don‘t have to do anything."

Miller says the ailment is something that will happen again and again for those who suffer from it once, but there are cheap, easy and noninvasive ways to prevent plantar fasciitis.

"Ice and massages and stretching are the therapies that help. Ice is for the inflammation and to relive pain. It‘s a constrictor and takes pressure off of the nerves. Ice down your foot," he says.

Doctors may recommend a frozen water bottle to roll under the foot. But, Miller says the drawback can be the width of the bottle that covers the foot from side to side, making it impossible to target trigger points.

"You have to break down and release the tissue," Miller says.

He says there are foot rollers with three wheels spaced to ensure the trigger points are targeted.

"It can really dig into and release that tissue. It‘s not going to feel good and if it‘s not a little painful it‘s not working," he says.

The other treatment is stretching.

"The foot stretches - similar to kind of kicking the foot up against the wall."

A pro-stretch tool can make the stretching more efficient and prevent the tightening

of the plantar fascia, which is why the injury usually happens.

"The reason it gets inflamed is because it gets tight."