The Real Deal to Heal my Heel

I got, and greatly appreciate, some very helpful feedback from my last post about my busted wheel.  Such good advice, in fact, that I'm going to share what I'm doing for my foot in hopes that the runners out there who have slain the Planter Fasciitis beast might pass along some more ideas for what to do, or equally importantly what not to do as I try to get my right leg to fall in line with the program.

Quick recap of my latest deterioration:

• I had finally gotten over the worst of my IT Band woes, when I started noticing some soreness in my right heel, mostly on the outer rear of the heel (started about 3 weeks ago)
• Soreness would persist for about the first mile of a run, then mostly go away, but by later in the day it would be back, usually a little worse each time.
• I was scheduled for my usual every-other-day run this past Friday, but the pain was noticeable enough that I skipped that run, and decided to shut down running completely for at least a week.  I haven't been to a doctor for this (yet), but most everything I've read or heard points to the early stages of Plantar Fasciitis, so I'm trying to self-treat for that, and will go to the doctor if my efforts fail.

Here's where I currently stand:

• Have eliminated running completely, with my last run being last Wednesday (6/2)
• Eliminated biking as well, so my only current aerobic activity is swimming, which I've been doing every other day, including this morning, but am planning to cut out for the next few days too since I feel some discomfort while swimming as well
• Still lifting every other day, but mostly just upper-body, with the exception of quad extensions
• Have continued with my daily IT Band stretches, but am going to eliminate those as well until Sunday, since it's hard not to get my calves involved, which in turn stresses the injury
• Have eliminated any of the lunges or balancing strength exercises for my knee from the usual routine to minimize stress on the injury.  Only doing a series of leg raises right now to maintain inner quad strength
• Icing my foot 4x daily - morning and night, foot submerged in bucket full of ice&water for 15 minutes - hurts so good.  Lunchtime rolling a frozen can of beans under my foot for about 15 minutes.  Evening/dinner-time - foot on a frozen bag of peas for 10-15 minutes.
• Taking 3 Advil 3x daily for 7 days (currently on day 4) to try and break the pain cycle.
• Bought the Footlog (footlog.com), and rolling my feet on it 2x daily for about 5-10 min each time.  Doing this pretty lightly now, but will start increasing pressure gradually in about a week.
• Wearing running shoes pretty much all the time now, with the exception of showering.  No barefoot, flipflops, etc. for the foreseeable future.

I think that's it for now.  Planning to keep this routine up until this coming Monday (6/14), when I'll start adding some light stretching to see how things respond.  Hopefully by the following Sunday (6/20) I'll be able to start some very light running and see where things stand.

Anybody see anything that I'm missing?  Anything I'm doing wrong?  Anything else I should start or stop?  Anybody want to trade feet with me?

Desperately missing running .... serenity now.

Runner, interrupted

I was really hoping that by this point in my blogging evolution I would be past the injury discussion, and rambling on about how my training was proceeding and how life was shaping up in the warm-weather months.  However, the lower right portion of my body seems to have different plans.

Although my knee still likes to remind me of its presence every once in a while, and although I'm still doing my PT streching daily - mostly out of paranoia, I think I'm past the worst of my IT Band issues.  Unfortunately I started getting some pain on the outside of my right heel about 3 weeks ago, and this week the pain has gotten progressively worse.  Based on the absurd amount of web trolling I've done around heel pain, everything presents itself as plantar fasciitis.  I've been icing it, and stretching it, not going barefoot, elevating, rolling tennis balls under my feet while working, etc., and yet every day it's a little bit more sore.  I tried doing my new yoga routine last night, but had to shut that down after about 25 minutes when the calf stretching was giving me heel pain.

Sadly this morning I decided to skip my run and shut down the running for a bit to see if I can get this under control.  Looked back through my training log, and what this means is I've had a total of 2 runs in 2010 where I wasn't dealing with an injury.  Hurt my calf on January 6, then worked through IT Band issues, and now dealing with my foot.  Extremely frustrated to say the least.  Trying to stay positive, but starting to wonder if my body is trying to tell me something and I'm just refusing to listen.  Hopefully a few days off will do a body good.