Z-Coil Testimonial– heal your Plantar Fasciitis

Its funny, because in 2004 I ran a marathon with no foot injuries or pain. But about a year later, I started work­ing at a new place and wear­ing flat, non-cushioned work shoes. I walked sev­eral blocks on cement to a bus, then I walked on cement to the build­ing I worked in, then I walked on cement all around my neighborhood. 

Sud­denly I had flam­ing pain under­neath my foot that I learned was Plan­tar fasci­itis. It took me awhile to fig­ure out what the pain was. Basi­cally the plan­tar fas­cia under my foot had torn a lit­tle bit from all the pound­ing my feet were get­ting, then it got inflamed, and because I kept walk­ing every­day, it never got a chance to heal. 

It got so bad that any walk­ing at all hurt. I tried every rec­om­men­da­tion I read about. A lot of advice says to stretch out the Achilles ten­don so it won’t tear. This might be good pre­ven­ta­tive advice, but its totally crappy advice for an already torn ten­don or already inflamed fas­ciaa!  (Stretch­ing rec­om­men­da­tions include rolling your foot on a ten­nis ball, stretch­ing the back of your calf, and leav­ing your foot with your toes point­ing up while you sleep — they have many devices to keep your foot in this position.)

If you think about it, what you need is to stay off the torn area so that it gets a chance to heal, and reduce inflam­ma­tion. If you have to keep walk­ing every­day though, how do you EVER give that ten­don a chance to heal? Its a prob­lem, and its one of the rea­sons plan­tar fasci­itis usu­ally takes so long to heal.

Well, after many months of pain, I found Z-Coil shoes online. They are so ugly, but I swear, my feet hurt so bad, I just didn’t care at all. I had a fam­ily vaca­tion com­ing up and I didn’t want to be in pain the whole time. I wore my Z-Coil shoes for two weeks before the trip.

After months of icing my feet, stretch­ing them, and strength train­ing with lim­ited results, it only took two weeks of wear­ing my Z-Coil shoes and I was totally pain free.  When you are in almost con­stant pain, and then sud­denly you stop hurt­ing, it is a HUGE relief. So, even though my office mates were pretty rude about my ugly shoes, I didn’t care.

I think Z-Coils work because they hold your foot in a cer­tain posi­tion so its almost like hav­ing a cast for the bot­tom of your foot. Also, they have a spring on the heel which reduces the impact on your foot. Like I said, my feet com­pletely stopped hurt­ing in two weeks, but they still hurt if I walked bare­foot– even in my house, so I had to only wear Z-Coil shoes for quite awhile, almost a year, before my feet were fine in other shoes. 

About a year and a half ago, I stopped wear­ing my z-coil shoes. I got embar­rassed about how ugly they are. (A sure sign that I was healed.) Plus, I wanted my feet to have a full range of motion– I think that is health­ier for unin­jured feet.

Well, last week I ran three miles. My feet started hurt­ing the same day. So, I’m going to start wear­ing my Z-Coil shoes again. This time I’m catch­ing it sooner, so hope­fully my feet will heal more quickly. Once again, the pain sud­denly inures me to the ugli­ness of the shoe.

You can see the dif­fer­ent styles at the web­site. I have the black Walk­ing shoe. They are ugly as sin. I’m not kid­ding. The new Z-West boot they have looks kind of cute, though. I might have to get that some­day. I love boots.

I would ide­ally like to wear an impact absorb­ing shoe on a reg­u­lar basis, but when I am not injured, I’d like one that allows my foot a full range of motion. I’d like to try:

• Spira Footwear - they hide their springs in the heel of the shoe, and they actu­ally have one decently cute style.
• J.Rubio have vis­i­ble springs, but they are cute in a kind of whim­si­cal way. I like shoes with back though, and all their styles seem to be clogs. They could be nice to have around as quick slip on shoes though.

Z-Coil def­i­nitely work if you have plan­tar fasci­itis. They hold your foot in place to give your foot a chance to heal while you still walk, and they absorb impact to pre­vent future injuries. Very effec­tive against an aggra­vat­ing injury.

While you are wear­ing Z-Coils and giv­ing your feet time to heal, I rec­om­mend reduc­ing inflam­ma­tion by icing the injured part of your foot, tak­ing aspirin or ibuprofin if that is ok for you, and eat­ing an anti-inflammatory diet.