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I don’t think I’ve ever fully laid out what got me started on my foot health journey in full, so here’s the story.
This article is meant to be informative and relatable as many people have been in similar situations before. Many of the products I used throughout this journey are linked here because they served a purpose at the time and ultimately lead to me getting rid of my pain.
I used to do taekwondo when I was about to graduate from college (2 years ago at this point in time) and there were several night classes each week.
In one of these night classes, we were practicing some tumbling. This started with doing somersaults over one shoulder each time, but then we moved onto tumbling over some short platforms. We used our body shields (thick, square pads to protect your torso) to make these platforms and we just kept stacking them higher and higher.
Soon this became competitive because after 3 or 4 pads were stacked up, most people could not get over them. It also meant that “tumbling” was almost out the window at this point; we were mostly doing some kind of a jump or flip to get over the pads. I was getting really into the activity and wanted to be the last one standing so I committed to doing front flips to get over this makeshift high-jump.
The first “front flip” I did landed me on my backside and heels mostly. Luckily, the floor at this gym is a thin mat and we supplemented this with another thin pad to land on when we evidently wiped out. That first landing stung, but not badly enough to scare me. A couple people tried their hand at it and my turn came around again.
This time, my front flip fell short.
I landed less on my backside and mostly on my heels. That really hurt. I quickly felt some sharp pain and tingling start in both of my feet. I had to sit in my landed position for a minute because I sure felt that one. But, I got up on my own power and walked it off.
At this point, I’m not 100% sure if I went again or not. I believe that I took a third try at it but either way, the result was the same. Another flip or not, my feet were really in pain and tingling a lot by the end of this class.
I knew I hurt myself but I wasn’t familiar with this feeling. It was a lot of pain in my heels and some down both of my feet. My feet felt really heavy and warm too, almost like all my blood rushed down into them when I landed.
Notice that it was BOTH of my feet. If you have followed my writing for a while, you’ll probably know that I usually talk about my left foot hurting or how that was the one I had to treat. That is because after I limped home that night and tried to keep all my weight off my feet, I woke up the next morning to find that only my left foot was hurting.
I think there was a little swelling on my right foot, but nothing like my left foot. The left side was looking increasingly bad and it felt even worse. There was enough swelling that I had to loosen my left shoe to about as wide as it could stretch out so it wouldn’t squeeze too much.
I believe I missed the class I had that first morning (which was a Friday) so I went into the weekend on a very sour note and not sure what to do. I didn’t even feel like I could drive my car to get to school and make the short walk to class.
What I did to ensure that I could make it to class the following week was loosen my shoes, wrap my foot in an athletic wrap, and limp from the parking lot to my class. By limp, I mean keep most of the weight on my right foot (which felt fine already) and only put pressure on the ball of my left foot.
So I walked with my left heel raised for a couple weeks.
This felt and looked ridiculous and I knew it, but I also didn’t want to go to the doctor. I already knew what they would give me and have me do. I wasn’t really interested in their protocol.
Sometime after several weeks had gone by, I had done so much reading about my symptoms and just wanted to be able to give it a name at the very least. It wasn’t close enough to achilles tendonitis initially, so I settled that it was either posterior tibial tendonitis or plantar fasciitis.
The reason being is that I not only had sharp heel pain, but also chronic pain coursing over the top of my foot where it meets the ankle and running from the inside of my foot, up through the inside of the ankle and into the lower calf.
I remember for a few days, I was in enough pain that I just didn’t want to walk on that foot at all so I pulled out my old crutches from when I broke my foot previously and used those to get me to class and back. I even experimented with keeping my foot in the old walking boot I got from that injury.
Neither of these ideas were helping and I was getting impatient. I love trying to figure stuff out for myself, usually online, but I couldn’t find anything worthwhile at this point.
I eventually realized that most of the advice online is complete junk. I had tried the RICE method initially, some light stretching, and many more. I even tried some ridiculous “toe touch” and “foot crunch” exercises at my house and at the gym which lead to no further improvement whatsoever.
It actually makes me very annoyed that people who don’t have anything insightful to say about a serious subject like this still post very vague, generalized advice online. Most of these people obviously don’t know the first thing about these problems because almost everything that is recommended DOES NOT WORK.
If you are even a sparse reader of my work, you can probably pick up on some of the themes that bother me most. It’s because I have wasted a lot of time, money, and headspace on misguided and uneducated advice that got me no further. You can probably see why I’m passionate about this now.
My girlfriend and mom finally pressured me enough to go see a foot specialist.
I reluctantly went with my mom to see the doctor and I just have to say, it was exactly what I thought it would be. I didn’t feel like I was taken seriously and I just got the standard protocol read to me.
The X-ray showed that there was no damage done to the bone, I was told to stop everything I was doing and “rest”, and I left the place frustrated and immobilized by a brand new walking boot (probably much different than the last one, right?). The doctor also had physical therapy planned for me even before he understood what exactly was wrong with my foot.
When I asked him repeatedly for his specific opinion about my foot and why he was recommending the things he was, he remained incredibly vague. This made me feel much less confident in his ability to help me. He expected me to visit him every week or two, another thing I couldn’t understand, but I went back for a second visit anyway.
This time, I pressed him harder for things I could do to exercise and ways to treat myself faster. He advised me to go to REI and buy myself a really nice pair of foot orthotics to wear inside of my walking boot. I figured this would be progress so I did it.
The orthotics are called Superfeet and to be fair, they are very good. They served a purpose in supporting my foot and ankle when they were weak so I could be in less pain. As someone who was in pain every day, I am thankful to have had these.
Around this point, my right hip and right leg were starting to get bothered by the all the extra weight I was putting on that side along with the extra height of the walking boot on my left side. So I decided to ditch the walking boot after probably only a couple weeks of wearing it, and put the orthotics into my casual shoes. Some of my swelling had gone down by now which is what allowed me to do this.
Side Note: I felt confident ditching the walking boot despite the doctor’s orders because I have worn them before for previous injuries and the thing is, they simply don’t work. They are not an effective way of treating soft tissue damage. This is why I continued looking for other treatment options.
The inserts did ease some of the pain, which I now know is because they held my foot in a good position. But even still, the pain continued, I was alarmingly swollen, and I was nowhere near being able to exercise or even walk a decent distance. I was miserable because of it. I was very reliant on running and playing soccer and sparring in taekwondo to keep my sanity, but it all got taken very suddenly.
It was around the beginning of summertime and I was upset that I couldn’t longboard or go for walks with my girlfriend, so she reminded me about the idea of getting Birkenstock sandals. This was something she had brought up before but I wasn’t sold on the idea because I didn’t understand why they’d be worth it. After feeling the improvement of the Superfeet orthotics though, I decided to give the Birkenstocks a try.
All thanks to my girlfriend, this was the first time I felt a very noticeable improvement in my pain level.
I started wearing the sandals around our apartment and felt like I didn’t take them off for a few months. The firm, well-structured arch support and heel cup were very helpful in getting my foot to sit in the correct position so I wouldn’t feel much pain.
Soon after, through my continuous searching for answers online, the internet delivered. I had found what would become a game-changing, pain management system for myself: myofascial release.
I don’t exactly remember how I found this topic, possibly through my half-baked searches involving massage, chiropractors, and physical therapy. But once I found it, I took it seriously.
For several weeks, I was “releasing” tight fascia in my lower legs every day and it worked wonders for me. Naturally, I got lazy about keeping up the practice later on but at an average of a couple times per week for a couple months, I made a ton of progress during this time and it took away a large portion of my pain.
Continuing the positive momentum, the internet delivered for me again. I found the second life-changing solution and now something I care very deeply about, minimalist footwear.
I initially bought an all-purpose shoe which was a good introduction to the world of minimalist footwear. Once I got these, I started wearing them almost all the time. It felt so much better to have a wider toe box because I actually had a bunion developing on this foot at the same time (yikes).
I quickly realized that I loved this type of footwear and was sold on the idea. So I looked around some more for high quality and well-priced shoes and found myself ordering a pair of Hanas from Xero Shoes. I’ve ordered other pairs since, but I find myself coming back to Xero Shoes because they offer everything I need.
The very first time I took a walk in my Hanas, I couldn’t even believe it, but there was no pain. It was a relatively long walk with my girlfriend, and I was completely fine. I still can’t describe exactly why this was but it obviously meant the world to me. It must’ve been a combination of the wide toe box and the general space in the shoe all the way from the heels to the toes.
I now wear exclusively minimalist footwear. Under no circumstances will I tolerate traditional footwear anymore because of how debilitating they are for our feet. So I sold and donated all of my previous footwear over a period of time and slowly replaced the necessary pairs with minimalist options. I couldn’t be happier about it either.
Between myofascial release and minimalist footwear, these are the two things I swear by to help people treat their pain.
Myofascial release gives significant, immediate results and minimalist footwear is more like a long term investment; it’s going to correct-course for you the rest of your life wearing them. I like to use them to complement each other.
I later noticed that my left foot pronated significantly more than my right foot while I was walking at the gym. While I wish I noticed this much earlier, I’m glad to say at this point, I have seen improvements with this.
Again, I would credit this to both myofascial release (to release tight fascia and allow the underlying musculature to properly realign itself) and my minimalist shoes (for letting my feet be more free inside shoes and allowing them to slowly get stronger).
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