How cutting out wheat cured my plantar fasciitis

Plantar what? Plantar fasciitis (pronounced PLAN ter fash ee EYE tus) is one of the most common causes of heel pain. The plantar fascia is a flat band of tissue that connects your heel to the bones of your toe and it supports the arch in your foot.  Plantar fasciitis is, in theory, caused by straining the ligament that supports your arch, this leads to pain and swelling.  They say its caused by too much time on your feet (hmm), common in middle aged people (why?), if you're overweight, or if you have tight muscles in your legs.  If you've got it, you know about it.  Even undiagnosed people are aware if they have sore feet or not.  As a massage therapist I do a lot of reflexology work on the feet and when I squeeze the heel on my clients I find that 99% of people have sore heels.  That's a lot right.  Are your feet sore?

I developed agonising plantar fasciitis when I was pregnant with my two children.  At the time I was told it was because I was heavy from carrying child and that the relaxin in my pregnant body had made my arches relax too much.  I was on my feet a lot running after a then two year old whilst heavily pregnant with my second child, this I was told only exacabated the problem.  To add insult to injury we moved into a 'shouse' with a concrete floor!  I was in so much pain that I could not step more than two steps without shoes on.  The ONLY shoes I could wear comfortably were Birkenstocks. 

My cousin in the UK also suffers from this painful affliction, it causes him so much pain that he had a cortisol injection for it.  My Auntie also suffers from it so I assumed oh well its a family thing, just better live with it.  It was so sore that it would make my shoulders and neck tight just from the wincing I did as I walked around.  I had some orthotics made up which helped but didn't cure.

Ditching the gluten was the first step on my primal diet journey and it was only a matter of weeks, maybe two or three, before I noticed, 'hey, my feet aren't sore'.  I have always loved walking on the beach but until then it was a pretty uncomfortable exercise.  Now I was taking beach walks as therapy and no pain!

How is this so, well I have a couple of theories.  The first is that I have gluten sensitivity.  You don't need to have full blown celiac disease to have adverse reactions to gluten.  Gluten sensitivity, or gluten intolerance basically means having an adverse reaction to consuming gluten which can cause the body to attack it's own tissues.  Other signs of gluten sensitivity include bloating, stomach pain, fatigue, diarrhea and constipation as well as pain in the bones and joints.  Gluten sensitivity is much more common than you would think.  The easiest and cheapest way to see if you have it is to eliminate gluten for 30 days and see if you have relief in any of your nagging health problems.

Theory two gluten causes a leaky gut.  Studies show that gluten can cause inflammation in the intestine and a degeneration in the gut linining allowing unwanted substances to leak through into the blood stream and wreak havoc wherever the invading substances go. Which again comes down to inflamation.

So if you've got similar foot pain and are sick of putting up with it how about trying a gluten elimination plan for 30 days and see if you have any improvement? A reduction in pain may be the first of an avalanche of improvements you experience if you ask me! Did I mention the nigling shoulder pain also miraculously vanished too? 

What are your thoughts? I seem to be having some issues with the comments function below but you can contact me by email primalsoapbox@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook and Instagram.