Plantar fasciitis is becoming an increasingly common presentation. Laser acupuncture is surprisingly effective for this condition.
Plantar fasciitis is caused when the connective tissue joining the heel and the forefoot (plantar fascia) becomes inflamed. Factors contributing to this are poor heel support in shoes; flat feet; jobs requiring prolonged standing; and being overweight/obese.
The mainstay of treatment are orthotics for heel support and special stretches and exercises – all of which your friendly local podiatrist and/or physiotherapist can help with. Conventional second line treatment is usually a steroid injection of the area. I personally try and avoid steroid injections if I can help it because although it may help to reduce the inflammation (often only temporarily), it can cause weakening of the connective tissue in the long term. This is usually where I would ask my patients to try laser acupuncture first.
My treated plantar fasciitis case:
A middle aged woman comes to me asking to treat her long standing plantar fasciitis. She works in retail and is on her feet for hours. She has done the orthotics, the stretches and exercises and has already had TWO steroid injections to the area (with only a temporary effect). Her next options are pointing towards a surgical opinion.
I applied the laser acupuncture to only 3 points on her feet – 5 seconds max at each point. The week after, she returns with a remarkable 70% improvement! I repeated the same points again and advised her to importantly to continue stretches/exercises, wearing orthotics and aiming for slow and steady weight loss. It’s been one month and I haven’t seen her since so I assume she is still going well. She is a strong responder, just like my previous case of subacromial bursitis (shoulder pain). Most of my other patients have more moderate responses
In my opinion, weight loss is probably the biggest contributing factor – you lose the weight and you’ll lose the plantar fasciitis. Diet is crucial but it’s hard to exercise if your heel hurts – and this is where I see the role of laser acupuncture.
