Disclaimer: This advice is meant as a bunch of helpful suggestions that have been useful to us, and is not meant as a substitute for seeing a doctor in the event that you have some serious injury. If anything recommended here makes your condition worse, please stop immediately and seek professional help.
I'd promised some things that I've found help lower back and foot problems. No, I'm not a doctor, and I make the disclaimer that the neither Federal Government nor the FDA has approved of any of these measures, to my knowledge, and that you try these things at your own risk and you better not sue me (so there! And incidently, but parenthetically, I've never found any of this, some of it very powerful and effective, to be the least bit risky when applied with even a minimum of common sense).
Plantar fasciitis is basically sore feet caused by microscopic rips and tears in the mostly connective tissue (plantar fascia) that connects the heel bone to the bones in the ball of the foot. (For a lot of web sites with excellent graphics and descriptions, search on "plantar fasciitis"). This is a common ailment among dancers and runners, especially those who run or dance mostly "on the toes" or on the balls of their feet. (In addition to teaching dance six days a week, I also used to run ten miles a day--I now bicycle instead). I tried literally hundreds of remedies, some rather wacky (like soaking my foot in tequila--drinking it also helped! Really! I discovered this after drinking way too many margaritas one night after dancing; I couldn't even drive myself home; but the next day, despite the considerable hangover, my foot, which had been in a lot of pain, amazingly felt great!. The tequila remedy, however, either internal or external, is not one I recommend.). The obvious solution is to stop or minimize all activity involving the feet. This is what doctors almost always recommend. For me this was unacceptable, except that I did decide I couldn't both dance and run, substituting bicycling for running. So briefly (ha!), I recommend four things to do.
With plantar fasciitis, your feet hurt most when getting out of bed in the morning, or anytime you've not been on your feet for a long time and then try to get up and walk around. Simply enduring the pain is not the answer; this merely compounds the damage. Instead get a car mat--the carpeted plastic or rubber mat that covers and protects the underlying carpet in your car--at Wal-Mart or a car parts store. On the underside you'll see a bed of little plastic "nails" that make the mat stick to the carpet. The sharper, more dense these are, the better. Often the cheaper ones are better. I've found that older Honda (88 Civic--try an auto wrecking yard) ones are the best in this regard. Place this mat (after cleaning it thoroughly if it's used) upside down-- with the "bed of nails" sticking up-- next to your bed. When you wake up in the morning, before walking or standing, place your feet on the mat and put enough weight on them that you feel some but not too much pain from the "nails". Then stand on it if you can. If your feet are too sensitive to the "nails" try putting on some medium thick socks before standing on it. Then try shifting your weight from one foot to the other. Also try putting a sock, handkerchief, washrag, half a tennis ball, or something underneath the mat to create a "bump" so that you can feel it in your arch. Thirty seconds (or longer) on the mat and you can then walk virtually pain free. It works even faster, but taking a little time feels priceless and is good for your feet. Compare this with fifteen minutes of misery and causing further damage to your feet every morning.
Second, ice your feet at night or after any activity that stress the feet. You can purchase thick plastic trash buckets at Wal-Mart for about $3-$4 each for this purpose. Get two or three of them. In one of them put a tray of ice cubes along with about a half gallon of water. In the other one (or two) put hot water (not too hot, not scalding). Place your foot in the ice water and hold it there for as long as you can stand it, usually about 15-30 seconds, then put it in the hot water one. Again be sure the hot water is not too hot; test it with your hand first. Go back and forth, from hot to cold, etc. This does wonders for your foot, and even if you don't have foot problems, it is a good practice to maintain your feet. With three buckets you can place them in a row; hot, cold, hot, and put, say, your left foot in the left most one, right foot in the middle one, then when you switch put your left foot in the middle one and right foot in the right most one.
Third, exercise the muscles on the top of your foot and front of your lower leg. You can try sticking your toe under a stationary object like the overhang of a floor cabinet and then stretch those muscles as you sit down on the floor leaving your toe under the cabinet overhang. You can adjust the tension by how bent your leg is in the sitting position. Then do an isometric (described above) by pushing your heel against the floor and raising your toe upward against the overhang. If you have access to weights or exercise equipment you could attach a pulley or weight to the toe of an old tennis or running shoe and use your toe and foot to raise and lower the weight. I have a pair of old shoes that I punched a hole in each toe and ran a length of cord through making a loop to which I could then attach a metal "S" hook (available at Home Depot), attaching a cable to that which in turn was attached to a weight stack. You may have to improvise a little but you get my drift. Exercising the top of your foot muscles will help the bottom of your foot muscles a lot the same way doing stomach crunches helps your lower back. With any repetition in raising and lowering a weight it is important to start the lifting phase with the muscle in an elongated or "stretched out" position. It feels better too. Do light weight with lots of reps.
Fourth, you may want to consider purchasing a "night splint". This a device that looks a little like an open boot that maintains your foot in a flexed or "L" shape relative to your leg. You wear it while you sleep or are inactive. It is a bit of a pain, especially at first getting used to it, but that pain is minimal compared to the pain you miss experiencing by wearing it. What normally happens is that without the splint your feet are relatively extended all night. Your plantar fascia are in the "shortened" position. The little "rips and tears" in your plantar fascia tend to heal at night, but then in the morning the minute you get up and flex your feet and put weight on them those "rips and tears" occur all over again. If this happens persistently over a long enough period of time, scar tissue eventually develops, and things then get even worse and less easy to fix. The splint, by keeping your foot even slightly flexed elongates the plantar fascia as the rips and tears heal. Then when you get up there is less tendency for them to tear. Your feet hurt less in the morning and get better a lot faster. The night splint really works. Search online. There are several different brands, some better than others. It will cost you about $80, but is well worth it if you need it. Note: not wanting to pay the $80 I tried making something similar out of an old running shoe. It didn't work; it's not worth the trouble. Find a good one and just buy it.
Fifth, I tried putting an herb poultice on my foot overnight. This should be done in conjunction with the splint, above. The way I did it was I'd take whatever herb or herb combination I wanted to try and I'd simmer it for fifteen or so minutes, let it cool, make a paste of it, spread it on a paper towel, and apply it to the bottom of my foot. I then took a plastic small trash can bag (a new one without holes in it, or maybe two of them doubled, and put my foot in it. I then used duct tape to tape the top of the bag around the ankle or lower part of my leg to seal it and keep any liquid from leaking out. Then I put a sock over the whole mess. Don't wrap the tape too tightly (you don't need to) around your leg lest you inhibit the blood flow. You then leave it on overnight. This is a very intense thing to do, so use common sense and reasonable caution. Use herbs that you are sure are safe and that will not cause an allergic reaction. I can't remember which herbs or combinations I tried, but they all seemed to work, some better than others. Consult a good herbal, looking for herbs under "sports injuries", torn ligaments, sprains, tendinitis, or muscle pain. Two I like are "Healthy Healing" by Linda Rector Page, and "Prescription for Herbal Healing", by Phyllis A Balch. These are both popular and available at Amazon.com or at your local bookstore, or probably even at the public library, but they are both well worth owning.
If your feet are healthy, a good exercise to strengthen the muscles and connective tissue in your feet are what I call "negative heel lifts". These are easy to do and take little time. In a pair of shoes with a flexible, gripping sole, like a running shoe, stand on something like a concrete step or curb with your heels hanging over the edge and the balls of your feet on the edge of the step. Lower your body to the maximum extent, stretching your achilles and calf and foot muscles and connective tissue in the process. Stretch to the max, but don't "bounce" too much, but hold it as long as it feels good. Then slowly use your calf muscles to raise your body, but only to the point where your feel are horizontal. Repeat. Don't do this exercise with any additional weight, like they have machines in gyms where you can lift a weight stack in addition to your own weight to develop your calf muscles. Don't do it. And in the beginning be cautious about even lifting your own weight, perhaps pulling or pushing with your arms to supplement the effort of your legs and feet. If you have strong muscles and want more exercise, do more reps, not more weight, at least for this exercise.
These remedies for foot problems are presented in order of increasing desperation. They were the best of a hundred or so things I tried over a period of ten or more years. The first, second and third remedies are excellent for preventing foot problems from developing in the first place. If even more desperate measures are called for, try ultrasound. Research ultrasound equipment on the Internet. There are two main types of ultrasound equipment (and many subtypes): for imaging, and for muscle/joint therapy. You want the latter. Ebay often has good deals for used or new ultrasound equipment, but educate yourself and do some research first. As a last resort you could go see your podiatrist. A type of ultrasound "shock" therapy, called "ossatron" therapy, available thru your podiatrist, can be very effective, especially for advanced cases of plantar fasciitis where scar tissue has already developed, but is ridiculously and unreasonably expensive, and insurance may not cover it (get an ironclad predetermination in writing from your insurance company beforehand to avoid unwelcome surprises). Still, if you've tried everything else. . . .
For aches and pains in general I recommend (drum roll) the Hair Brush! Many years ago, like maybe twenty or so, my wife and I were scheduled and paid up to go to a three day folk dance camp a week or so hence. I had this excruciating pain in my ankle for several weeks. Whenever I even put weight on it the pain was excruciating. I was thinking I'd never be able to dance at all much less dance fourteen hours a day. Depressed and not sleeping well, partly as a result, I was watching television at about three a.m. when infomercials rule. There was one, you may have seen it yourself, that ran for thirty minutes pushing a device that was supposed to cure all aches and pains. The device consisted of a handle with a rod attached; on the rod were a bazillion little stainless steel washers with pointy things on the perimeter of each washer. As you drag the rod over the area of skin where your pain is the little pointy things on each washer would gently stimulate the skin, kind of like the mat ("bed of nails") in remedy one, above. This rod was "only" $59.95, or three payments of $19.99 with a money back guarantee. I swallowed my pride (knowing that no one would ever find out I'd actually paid $59.95 for something advertised on late night TV) and dialed the toll free number, got it and tried it. It worked! My ankle was immediately and miraculously cured! I went to the workshop, danced fourteen hours a day. I never asked for my money back. But what I did discover is that a boar bristle hair brush works even better. And it costs about $4 at Walgreens, or probably less at Wal-Mart, and possibly 99 cents at the 99 cent store. You want the cheap one, not too stiff, without any bells or whistles. Better, get several, of varying stiffnesses. You lightly brush over the pained area for anywhere between thirty seconds and five minutes. It usually works almost immediately, especially if the ache or pain has only been incurred recently. I find it always helps, sometimes dramatically and sometimes not. It also works for muscle "kinks" in your back, sprains, muscle spasms, etc. For "kinks", and tight muscles I recommend 20 seconds of the brush alternating with stretching, back and forth. Why it works I don't know. Often it is very amazing and dramatic. Speculation has it that it works by increasing bloodflow. While this may be true, I think the primary reason is more along the lines of why acupuncture works, like it somehow messes with the body's energy field--but whatever. Remedy number one, above, is a variation on this technique adapted for the thick skin on the bottom of the foot.
I want to address one other issue that presents a common problem: lower back pain, or your lower back "going out". I won't go into detail about why the following exercise was so profound for me, but suffice to say it literally changed my life. Briefly (but intensely) this exercise addresses, and hopefully, done regularly, will cure chronic lower back problems. Basically it stretches and exercises the muscles in the neck, on all four sides of the neck. And actually it is four different but similar exercises. They don't take long. To give you the concept I explain how I discovered these exercises. I'd had chronic lower back problems for many years, my lower back "going out" once or twice a month. If I had the time and could afford it I'd run (actually not) to my chiropractor and get an adjustment which made it heal faster. This was maybe twenty five or thirty years ago. I joined a Nautilus Gym to work out. They had a "neck machine" which consisted of a pad on a lever connected to a cable on a pulley, connected to a weight stack. With your neck stretched all the way in one direction, say forward, you place your head against the pad and "unstretch" your neck, moving your head and pushing against the pad to raise whatever weight you have on the stack. You then move slowly back to the original "stretch out" position letting the weights lower. You do this in each direction, i.e. in four directions thus exercising the muscles on both sides of your neck, then your "throat" muscles, and finally (and most important) the muscles on the back of your neck that extend into and join the muscles in the upper back. You do not, however, need a machine for this exercise. You can simulate it. For example you can do the muscles on the back of your neck by lacing your fingers behind your head, pulling your head as far forward as you can, stretching those muscles, then while bringing your head up and back, maintain pressure with your hands (and arms) against your head and resisting that pressure with your head as you move your head back and forth from the "stretched out" position to the "unstretched out" or upright position. Repeat this going to the left side, right side and forward side. Going forward, do not stretch your neck all the way back, but only go from upright to all the way forward. The other necessary exercise for your lower back is doing stomach crunches or some form of exercise for your stomach muscles. Again, do high number of reps with only medium intensity. These two exercises cured me; I haven't seen a chiropractor, at least not in my remembrance, in at least twenty five years.
This week's notes are turning into a book. But these are some of the exercises that have gotten me to this point in my life. I hope they may prove useful to you.
Gary Diggs