The Heel Pain Decision Maker

Please don’t buy anything yet. Including from me.

Not insoles, not a night splint, not a massage gun, not another pair of shoes — and not my book or my paid system either. Go through this first. Most people with plantar heel pain can make a sensible start with a wall, a step, a rolled towel and two weeks of honest notes.

If you still want something afterwards, you’ll at least know what job you’re paying it to do.

One exception: money spent getting properly assessed is not the kind of spending this page is talking about. If the safety screen flags something, please go.

Why this exists

I had plantar heel pain for four years. Cortisone injections in two countries. Shockwave. Acupuncture. Insoles, night splints, heel cups, foam rollers, massage balls. Fifteen days of a man striking my heel with an iron hammer.

Almost every one of those things had a defensible reason behind it. What nobody ever did was tell me which job each one was doing — so I judged all of them by whether they cured me, concluded everything had failed, and kept buying the next thing.

That is the problem this page is for. Not more information. Fewer wrong purchases and one clear next step.

Safety screenShould you be self-managing this at all?

Find your stageMost advice is written for a stage you’re not in.

What each thing doesWhich job is that treatment actually doing?

A plan that costs nothingA wall, a step, a towel. Plus a tracker.

What this is not Not medical advice. Not a diagnosis. Not a claim to cure plantar fasciitis or prevent it coming back. It assumes a clinician has already looked at your foot — and if that isn't true, the safety screen will say so and send you to one.

If you're looking for "do this for six weeks and your heel pain will be gone" — it isn't here, and it isn't in any honest version of this.

The mistake that cost me four years

I judged every single treatment by whether it cured me. Ice — no. Insoles — no. Cortisone, shockwave, stretches, physio — no. So I concluded that everything had failed, and kept buying the next thing.

Asking whether an ice pack cured my plantar fasciitis is like asking whether a seatbelt got you to Manchester.

It isn’t a criticism of the seatbelt. It was never doing that job.

Your data stays on your device Everything you type is stored in your own browser. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, no email is collected, and no one — including me — can see any of it. Clear your browser data and it's gone.

Is this something you should be self-managing at all?

The hidden first question, and almost nothing on the internet asks it. Tick anything that is true for you.

Does your pattern fit?

Plantar heel pain is not the only cause of pain under the heel. Fat pad problems, bone stress injury, nerve entrapment, a fascia tear, Achilles problems and inflammatory conditions can all turn up in the same neighbourhood. This can't tell them apart. It can only ask whether your pattern looks unusual.

Find your stage

Seven questions, about two minutes. Most heel-pain advice is written for a stage you're not in — which is a large part of why it doesn't work.

What this does: points you at one of three approaches, so you have somewhere to start instead of trying everything at once.
What it doesn't do: diagnose anything, identify a stage of your fascia, or tell you how much walking is safe for you specifically.

What each thing actually does

This is the single most useful idea on this page, and it's why so many people conclude that "everything failed."

Most people judge every treatment by whether it cured them. That's a category error. Different tools do different jobs, and a tool that did its job perfectly still looks like a failure if you measured it against the wrong one.

Asking whether an ice pack cured your plantar fasciitis is like asking whether a seatbelt got you to Manchester. It isn't a criticism of the seatbelt.

Short-term relief on one side — cooling, support, gentle stretching, reducing load — and long-term recovery on the other: building strength, progressing gradually, moving with confidence, getting back to life. — Two columns, two different jobs. The left one makes today easier. The right one is the one that gives you your life back — and it is the one almost everybody skips.

Ice never failed to cure your heel pain. Ice was never a job-four tool. Nor were your insoles, nor your taping. They're job two and job three, and judged on those jobs several of them probably worked.

What's almost always missing is job four and job five — capacity and return. That's where the years go. And they're the cheapest two on the list.

What the medical options can and can't do

None of this is a reason to avoid them. It's so you know what you're buying.

To be completely clear Nothing here says avoid clinicians. A physiotherapist who examines you can do things no website can, and if you've been given a programme by one, theirs beats anything on this page. What this section says is narrower: know which job you're paying for, so you can tell whether it worked.

The plan that costs nothing

A wall, a step, and a rolled-up towel. That's the whole equipment list.

Before you start These are descriptions of protocols published in the research literature, offered as education — not a programme prescribed for you. If a physiotherapist or podiatrist has assessed you and given you a programme, theirs supersedes everything here. This page has not been reviewed by a licensed clinician. Do not begin any of it — including comfort measures — without guidance if you have diabetes, neuropathy, reduced sensation in your feet, a circulatory condition, or you are pregnant.

An illustrated pathway: calm flare-ups, manage load, rebuild slowly, then walking, work, travel, sport and family life. — This is what the exercises are *for*. Not the routine — the walk, the shift, the trip, the game in the garden. Write down the one you want back before you start.

Two rules that matter more than the exercises

Start below what you think you can do. Not at it. Below it. Starting where you think you should be is the most reliable way to have a bad week.

Change one thing at a time, then watch for about a week. One. Not two because they're both small.

And the one that costs people years Don't stop when the pain stops. Capacity arrives after symptoms improve. Stop the moment you feel better and you stop at the exact point where you have relief and no reserve — which is why the next demanding week puts you back where you started.

Today

Two weeks of honest notes beats two weeks of enthusiastic guessing. Function gets equal billing with pain on purpose — a tracker that graphs only pain teaches pain-watching.

Date First-step morning symptom, 0–10 — before you stand, before you check your phone.

Comfortable walking (min)

Comfortable standing (min)

What you did — activity, surface, footwear How does this morning compare with your usual?

Where you are

Reading the response

Read symptoms + function + trend together. Never pain alone.

Green — proceedMild and non-escalating · settles within hours · next morning near normal · function holding. Continue, and consider one small progression.

Amber — holdClearly raised but settling · next morning above normal, back within a day · trend flat. Hold. Don't progress. Don't panic.

Red — reduceEscalating during · not settling overnight · several mornings clearly worse. Step back to a level you tolerated, then rebuild from there.

Amber is the light everyone ignores. Green feels like permission and Red feels like a wall; Amber feels like nothing much, so people treat it as Green and progress anyway. One bad morning is noise. Three in a row is a trend.

The full progression ladder

The free plan carries the first three rungs. These are the rest, plus the rules that govern how you move between them.

Two rules that matter more than the exercises Start below what you think you can do — not at it, below it. And change one variable at a time, then watch for about a week. One. Not two because they are both small.

There is no calendar attached to this. Some people move a rung in a week, some take a month, some stay on one for a season. All of those are normal.

The eight dials

When you progress, you are turning exactly one of these.

Dial eight deserves its own sentence. Your daily life comes out of the same budget as your exercises — if you add a set of heel raises the same week you start walking to work, you have turned two dials, and when something aggravates you will not know which. Count the shopping. Count the airport. Count the wedding you stood at.

Do not stop when the pain stops Capacity arrives after symptoms improve. Stop the moment you feel better and you stop at the exact point where you have relief and no reserve — which is why the next demanding week puts you back where you started.

Appointment Summary

Ten minutes with a clinician is worth far more when you arrive with data instead of a narrative. This reads your tracker and fills in what it can.

Appointment Summary

Self-reported data from a personal tracking log. Not a clinical assessment.

Name

Date

1. How long has this been going on? This episode, not the whole history

2. Where exactly is the pain?And which foot

3. The patternTypical figures from my log

4. Trend over the last three months

5. What I have tried, and for how long

What	How long	Effect

6. Current strengthening Which exercises, how often, how long for

7. What changed before it started or got worse

8. What I want to get back to

9. Anything new or differentNumbness, tingling, burning, weakness, pain elsewhere, night pain, swelling

Ask this, in these words "Given how long this has gone on — is there anything else this could be, and is there anyone else I should see?"

Produced from a self-management tracking log. It records what I have observed; it is not a diagnosis and does not replace clinical assessment.

Before you buy another heel-pain product

Know what job you're paying it to do.

Worth having, if it helps you

Save your money

Things that are unnecessary, weakly supported, duplicative, or replaceable with something you already own.

The cheapest job is the one that matters most Building capacity needs a step you already own, a backpack with books in it, and a towel. The irony of this entire category is that the part almost everyone skips is also the part that costs nothing.

If you want more, here's the honest version

Cover of Heel Pain Relief: A Practical Guide to Plantar Fasciitis by Siva Prasad.

You do not need to buy anything from me. Everything on this page is the useful core, and it is free permanently — no email, no upsell sequence, no expiry.

There is a book and a paid system. The book is the long explanation of why your heel behaves this way. The paid system adds the return-to-life pathways — walking, standing shifts, playing with your kids, gym, running, sport, travel — plus an appointment summary to take to your next appointment.

Don't buy either until this page has stopped being enough. For a lot of people it won't stop being enough, and that's a good outcome, not a lost sale.

And one thing I'd rather you knew before you spent anything: the paid edition has not yet been reviewed by a licensed clinician. When it has been, that will be stated with the reviewer's name and credentials.

The book The full system