Happy Feet

As I alluded to in my previous post "Sole Searching", the past couple of years I have struggled with an issue called plantar fasciitis, which is basically a pain in your feet around the heel that is due to inflammation of the tissue that connects your heel bone to the toes. This all began when I started running more and it is my belief that wearing Nikes that were too small, too soft, and too broken down exacerbated the problem. Plantar fasciitis has never crippled me to the point where I had to stop running but it is just annoying and uncomfortable and it can be very painful at times, especially when I get out of bed in the mornings. This is a common ailment for many runners and there are tons of suggestions and treatments out there, from crazy looking socks that you can wear at night to pull back your toes, to rolling your feet on frozen water bottles, to scrunching towels on the floor with your toes and more. I feel like I tried every remedy in the book but couldn't seem to make any progress in it getting any better.

Last year during my marathon training I attended a Thursday night Pint Striders run (local running group sponsored by Luke's Locker) and heard about a sports chiropractor named Dr. Rose Olson who specialized in helping runners using something called dry needling. A friend of mine who is a physical therapist (but lives out of state) had mentioned looking into dry needling so this caught my attention. I had already met with a physical therapist at Baylor but didn't get much real help or relief and the visits were extremely expensive. At this time, Rose was working at another office in Dallas and I made an appointment to check her out.

Although Rose is a chiropractor, her treatment is nothing like what you may think of when you picture a visit to a place like The Joint or other chiropractic clinics where you lay down and get adjusted and popped and yanked into alignment. Rose is an avid runner herself and her passion and specialty is keeping runners and other athletes moving. She uses a lot of active release techniques (ART) and of course the dry needling techniques to help runners release muscles and tightness that may be causing the imbalances leading to common running related ailments. Through dry needling my calves and hips, scraping my feet using a certain technique, and teaching me some exercises to do at home to strengthen my feet and my glutes, Rose helped get me through my first marathon last March. The plantar fasciitis improved a great deal after a few treatments with Rose and I was able to enjoy a few months without the nagging pain in my heels.

After a few months of relatively pain-free feet, last fall the plantar fasciitis began to rear its ugly head again. By this time, Rose had opened her own practice near White Rock Lake in east Dallas called Momentum Dallas. I have been able to continue seeing her on a regular basis and she has continued to work with my foot pain, tight hips and tight calves. She also has the Normatec compression boots to aid with recovery after long runs or tough workouts. Most recently she needled my feet using an electric current which really seemed to make a big difference in improving the pain in my feet (see photo). Being an avid runner and marathoner herself, she understands that runners aren't always thrilled about the idea of completing stopping their training to let an injury heal. She is really good about treating your issues in a way that allows you to continue your running and training.

I'm no spring chicken these days and with a long marathon training cycle ahead of me, I am very thankful to have Rose in my corner working to keep me healthy and mobile as I chase this pavement! Maintenance and injury prevention is a huge piece of being able to continue running on a long-term basis. If you are experiencing any nagging aches and pains as you run, I would highly recommend a visit to Dr. Rose so she can diagnose and get to the root of the cause. The body is such a complex and amazing system of interconnected muscles, bones, tendons, nerves all working together to create this beautiful thing we called movement. It's crazy how something out of balance or alignment in your upper body can travel all the way down to create pain in your feet or vice versa. Dr. Rose is an excellent resource for finding those root causes of pain within the kinetic chain and working to treat with innovative techniques to keep you running and feeling good doing it!