The protocol described in this article utilizes a combination of acupuncture needling, microcurrent and color-light treatment in conjunction with therapeutic exercise. It is a good example of a multi-faceted approach to a hard-to-treat pain issue. Plantar fasciitis is a painful condition of the foot that is hard to treat because all the body weight is on the feet, preventing rest and healing. Conventional treatment involves rest, NSAIDs, ice and physical therapy. The prognosis is usually for improvement after about two months of therapy. Relief can be obtained more quickly and with better long-term resolution using a combination of microcurrents and acupuncture. The patient should notice pain relief after the first treatment, although it may be temporary. A course of three to 10 treatments, preferably two times a week, will likely provide good carry-over of relief.
Think of plantar fasciitis as a lower body condition, not just a foot condition. When the qi is coursing freely through the legs, it is unlikely this condition would develop. Needle points around the heel and proximal points on the Kidney and Urinary Bladder meridians. Plum-blossom needling can relieve pain – try tapping along the pathways of the affected meridians.
I suggest using these techniques in sequence:
Circling the Dragon – use bi-phasic polarity microcurrent to surround the painful zone by searching and treating sets of acupoints. If available, add anti-inflammatory colors of therapeutic light such as purple or blue to boost results. Color-light therapy is likely to improve the results of acupuncture or microcurrent alone.
Polarized probes – There are several very useful local-distal acupoint placements:
Auricular micro-macro – Using polarized probes, try placing the + probe on the painful foot areas, and the – probe (using small, wetted, auricular probe tip) on the corresponding heel point of the ear on the same side of the body.
After doing the above techniques, surround the foot with microcurrent pad electrodes, preferably interferential four-pad placement. While the current is being applied, have the patient do these exercises:
#1: Patient leans forward against a wall with one knee straight and heel on the ground. The other knee is bent. The heel cord and foot arch stretch while the patient is leaning. Hold for 10 seconds, relax and straighten up. Repeat 20 times for each sore heel.
#2: Lean forward onto a countertop, spreading feet apart with one foot in front of the other. Flex knees and squat down, keeping heels on the ground as long as possible. The heel cords and foot arches will stretch as the heels come up in the stretch. Hold for 10 seconds, relax and straighten up. Repeat 20 times.
This is a prime example of the power of stretching and mobilization with simultaneous microcurrent. This form of combination therapy can be applied anywhere on the body that rehabilitation and neuromuscular healing is needed and will greatly accelerate the process.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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