“An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure”
As the process of menopause progesses there will be a decline in the proudction of sex horones from the ovaries, “they are starting to shut down the factory!” What this means for you is that your bodies ability to make both steriod hormones and stress hormones is diminished. The other location that these are made is at the adrenal glands. This whole topic was coverd in my blog on stress and menopause. It is something worth understanding, so stress management tools become ever so important for this stage of life.
Another lesser know issue is the soreness or the feet! Yep the foot. The plantar fascia in your foot is very important in the production of movement, walking, running jumping etc, all use this connective tissue in the foot.
For those who didn’t know, nor me, declining oestrogen plays a role in soreness of the feet. The plantar fascia absorbs pressure from ground forces when we move and also helps to generate stability in the foot so we can push off with purpose rather than having a soft spongy lever on the ground.
Those of you who have hobbled out of bed in the morning, will recognise that plantar fasciitis is characterized by pain at the bottom of the foot in front of the heel. It’s typically worse with the first steps in the morning or after a long period off the feet, prolonged standing, or following hard exercise. The pain may then reduce with movement or warming up. Pain you may be ffeling futher up the body may be due to your foot function or lack or.
Waking up the feel and giving them a bit of love with a plastic ball, spikey or otherwise, will help alleviate the symptoms of painful feet as you’ll be waking up the intrinsic foot muscles as well as smoothing out any tight tissue in that plantar region that can get tigh over time with walking and running activities.
As you can see in the image above there is a main strand of tissue along the mid foot but then there are lateral and medial fibres which will require attention also. Work your ball into each of these starting in the centre and working your way out to the side. All originating at the heel where you may also feel some pain of tighness in the tissue. If you haven’t done this beofre take your time. Go gently at first and ease into it. If you go too hard the tissue will push back and not relax. Imagine getting a massage whwere the masseuse is pushing too hard into you. You natrually push back rather than relaxing. Same goes here. Take it slowly and gently and the tissues will gradually relax as time goes on.
What happens as the decline in oestrogen kicks in during menopause issue and the pain you may be feeling, wasn’t completely due to plantar fasciitis, but instead, due to the plantar fascia (see in the diagram how broad this is underneath the foot) drying up through loss of oestrogen. So strengthening the plantar fascia (PF) is the key here. Maintaining strong feet is a key activity to maintaining balance and other important activities.
Sitting on toes also helps to maintain length of the tissues in the PF. If at first this is intollerable work on putting your hands down in front of you and over time ease back into the position you see below.
There are many more things you can do for healthy feet but try these to begin with and more will follow in future blogs.
If your feet are still bothering you book in here so we take take a closer look at what may be going on and work out a programme for you to get your feet into tip top condition.