[futuresurferchick]

I was wondering if anyone has any advice about how to deal with foot pain while exercising. My right food gets sore when I do weight-bearing exercise such as using the treadmill or playing squash, which are both cardio activities I do regularly. It is pain in the arch and ball of my foot. I am guessing it is probably my foot saying "please refrain from repeatedly pushing 270+ lbs down on me"..... but to that I say, giving it up is not an option! Especially squash, which I have grown to love.
I know you guys aren't doctors but have any of you experienced this? I bought some new running shoes and the problem has not gone away. I was thinking maybe I could get those gel insoles or something.

[fouripleys]

I've used the insoles, they help, but they don't eliminate the pain. Unfortunately, I know exactly the pain you are talking about, and agree that its ust cause of all the weight our poor feet have to bear.

[ellis]

If you can afford to get orthodic inserts for your shoes, I highly recommend them. We often don't get the support we really need, even with new shoes.
I hope the pain goes away soon.
Congratulations on your weight loss, and keep up the exercising!

[Dinahgirl]

Try icing your foot after you exercise. Freeze a bottle of water and roll your foot on it.

[kitkatbahr]

Wow, I sure can related to the pain. I have it in both feet and recently posted about heel spurs and plantar fasciitis under the exercise thread, if you want to read it. Sounds like what you have. Do lots of searching on google for those two things. I have an appt. with a podiatrist on Tuesday cause mine is so bad. I just had x-rays done and have a HUGE bone spur on my left heel and a large one on my right one. I recently bought heel-that-pain (HTP) inserts for my feet and they have worked really well. It took a few days to get used to them though, but I highly recommend them. I will probably end up needing custom orthotics, though, cause my feet have been bad now for almost 13 years and recently have gotten much worse since I started exercising more. Anyway, if you google this stuff, it will tell you things you can do to make it feel better and also explain why it hurts so bad. Chances are it's plantar fasciitis (tho I'm no doctor) and icing it will help as well as giving it a week or two off (I know, I didn't want to either, but I'm on my second week of trying to stay off my feet, no walking for exercise, no Curves, no nothing except some modified tae kwon do) and mine feel much better. Oh, also, you can go to Walmart in the foot care section, where the doctor shoals stuff is, and they have these elastic bands to wear to support your arches. They work good too. I use them, the heel that pain inserts and also bought a rather pricey pair of Rykas (best shoes in the world for bone spurs and plantar fasciitis in my opinion) that are walking shoes, made by women, for women. They really are very supportive. All of this has helped. I still have to do something with the podiatrist though, cause after having this for so many years, it's pretty bad. Whatever you do, DON'T let it get as bad as I did. Go see your doctor if you need to. Mine prescribed anti-inflammatory prescription cause the over the counter stuff just didn't work well.

Good luck! I was to the point that getting up in the a.m. and trying to walk was pure he## cause it hurt so bad. Now, if I do stretches (point your toes back towards your face with your legs straight out in front of you while you sit on the side of the bed) and stretch that ligament on the bottom of your foot, as well as the calf muscles, it will help. Otherwise, when you stand up, the planar fasciitis can tear (very small micro tears) and continues to get worse instead of better. Lots of stretches even before I get out of a chair at the computer, have helped alot.

Kathy
Merritt Island, FL

[lizzie54]

I have had heel pain for about 15 years. I've done the made for you orthotics. The pain went away for several years then returned. Receintly it has gotten worse where every step I take it hurts. The Drs say don't go barefooted always were some type of shoe. Personnaly I think it hurts less when I do go barefooted. I bought the elastic bands and they helped alot. I have purchased many types of arches. Some of them hit my foot at the wrong place and make the pain worse. The most releaf I have gotten is from a chiropractor who used a sonagram machine and then a massage therapist would massage the areas I have knots. The massaging is very painful. I believe they call this manual stripping. After about once a week for about 6 weeks I took a 2 month break and let the feet heal. No massaging no walking no pounding on my feet. Most of the knots in the bottom of my feet are gone except for one large on the left foot. Both feet still hurt when I walk. (not as bad) I reached a plateau with this treatment. In Jan I went to a podiatrist. He sent me to a physical therapist and had me buy the elastic arch supports. The physical therapist had me do exercises for my feet, sonagram therapy, red light therapy. Right foot is healed. Left foot has one small knot about the size of the eraser on a pencil and it's painful to the touch. This is in the arch. It's also painful where the tendon meets the bone at the heal. Another plateau. A week ago I bought the HTP-heel-seats. They aren't arch supports. They are specifically for plantar facitis. So far so good. The advertizement says to wear them for 4 weeks to see results. The healing of my feet has come a long way in the last year. But after 15 years of abuse. Take care of your feet. I attribute the initial injury to 1 of 2 things. Shoes with too high of an arch and a ski injury to my knees. There's a muscle that runs from the inside of the knee to the inside of the foot at the arch. I hope this will help someone else. Take care of your knees.