I had plantar fasciitis and stopped dancing for TEN YEARS. I tried wearing a brace to sleep, stretching, rolling, the frozen bottle of water, inserts, exercises, etc...everything short of surgery.
Then I followed the recommendations of the Trigger Point Therapy Manual and after some very painful massage of only two points, I got rid of the pain.
Spoiler alert: one point is where you feel the pain: on the sole of the foot, directly in front of the heel pad, deep--a golf ball works fairly well for this, but a wooden massage tool can be more "pointed" in its effect.
The other point is the soleus, the deep muscle at the back of the calf, at the center and just below where the two heads of the gastrocnemius meet. (If you stand on your toes and see the upside-down heart-shaped bulges of the two sides of the gastrocnemius, the soleus would be about where the V shape is in that heart shape.)
A fist (with straight elbow and wrist--lean; don't push) as you're sitting in a chair with your foot out to the side works. So does lying in bed/on the floor with the sore foot's calf on top of the other foot's bent knee.
Every now and then it will come back. I dance at least once a week. My feet take a beating.
But now I know what to do. Less than 15 minutes of massage, and maybe once or twice over the next day or two, if needed, and no more pain.
It's a small investment in the book, plus some tools, including a Theracane, dog balls, wooden hand-held acupressure tools, rubber balls, etc. But it's very rare that I cannot massage away my problems.
I've had frozen shoulder, thrown-out back, headaches, stiff neck, giving-out knees and hips, stabbing pain in the front of my ankle, shin splints, side stitches, numbness in my fingers or arm, etc.
It's a small investment in money, a larger investment of your time and effort. But the knowledge you gain will save you years and thousands of dollars, by not needing surgery or painkillers or shots, or braces, devices, orthotics, therapy, etc etc etc.
People want a free, easy fix. Your body works for you for decades, yet when it hurts, we don't give it the love and attention it deserves.
I recommend this book to so many people, yet I know only a handful who have tried it, but then gave in to surgery anyway. Most discount the info outright. Some buy the book and never use it.
Only one old woman friend, in desperation, used the arm of her chair to massage away her hip pain. I know someone who still cannot dance, due to recurring plantar fasciitis that's been going on for decades. Another friend lives with chronic hip pain despite surgery and shots and pills...she's not the type to "do" anything to help herself.
Yes, sometimes it means we must change our posture, habits, alignment, etc. Sometimes we're just really tired and sleep too long in one position, and wake up with a stiff neck. Sometimes we lift something heavy and feel hip pain the following day (as I get older, even that is slower...I usually feel it TWO days after I did something to cause the pain...making my raggedy memory work even harder to figure out what the heck that was...)
My theory, based on experience, is that the body can hold lots of tension, until one thing causes the scales to tip, and then BAM!--you have pain. Then it takes a bit of massage to smooth everything out again, to get the pain to go away.
It's almost never only one place that needs massage. At the least, it's usually two. In hips and shoulders and backs, where you have up to 24 different muscles that can cause pain, it can get quite complex.
Learn how your body works and reacts and hurts. That investment is priceless.
As we get older, we need more help. Our stiff necks do not typically resolve themselves by night, like it did when we were young. Stiff necks tend to get worse, until we get sore shoulders, headaches, or something else, as we try to adapt, rather than address the root cause.
I literally would not be able to walk if I did not know this information and use it regularly. I'm also a licensed massage therapist. Let's say I've witnessed a lot.
We have all been trained to believe that putting poisons into our bodies will make us well, prevent illness or disease, make us live longer, and save others, too! I guess it would make sense, if we had deficiencies of poisons.
