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Every morning I grab the top of the dresser before I take my first step. My husband thinks Im being quiet so I dont wake him. Im not. Im just waiting for my feet to work. Plantar fasciitis, my podiatrist called it… in both arches. And he told me it was probably just my age. Im 56, so I believed him. At this age, you get used to hearing that. Ive done hair for 31 years. I own a little 2 chair salon and Im on my feet 9 hours a day and always have been. So when a foot doctor tells you its wear and tear and youre not a spring chicken anymore, it makes a horrible kind of sense. You nod. You buy the shoes. You blame the years. But heres what age never explained. Why was it WORST first thing in the morning, before Id done a single thing to wear it out? Id sleep 8 hours, put no weight on my feet at all, and the first step out of bed was the sharpest pain of the whole day. Like standing on a shard of glass under the arch. By 10am it would ease off. By afternoon I could almost forget it. Then Id sit and do a color for 40 minutes, stand back up, and it would stab me all over again. I started planning my whole life around that first step. I stopped getting up for water in the night because I dreaded the walk back. I let the dog out later and later because standing at the back door hurt. My daughter asked me to go to the outlet mall and I said my back was bothering me. It wasnt my back. Ive never told her that. And I didnt just sit there and take it. I spent 2 years and a stupid amount of money trying to fix it. Custom orthotics from the podiatrist, $340 after my insurance laughed at me. 2 pairs of the thick supportive shoes, $260. A night splint that held my foot in a boot while I slept, $55, and all it did was keep me and my husband awake. A foot spa off the TV, $80. One of those little massage guns my son swore by, $130. And 3 cortisone shots in the heel, $60 a visit after insurance, which I will never do again, that felt like a nail going in and wore off in a month each time. Over $1,000 to stand at my own chair without wincing. And every single thing I bought was built on the exact idea my doctor handed me. That the pain was just old, worn out tissue. Nobody ever told me the tissue wasnt worn out at all. It was something else. And once I understood what, I couldnt believe how many people are walking around being told the same wrong thing I was. It isnt your fault that nothing worked. You were aiming at the wrong problem, because thats the problem you were handed. The person who set me straight wasnt a doctor. It was a woman named Junie who comes in every 5 weeks for a root touch up. Shes a massage therapist, does a lot of bodywork on athletes. She watched me get up off the shampoo stool one day, saw me grab the counter, and she said, real casual, thats not your heel giving out. Thats your fascia. Its frozen up. I said my what. And she spent my whole appointment explaining the thing no one had bothered to tell me in 2 years. Heres what she told me, and Ive since read enough to know shes right. You have this tissue called fascia. Its a thin, tough web of connective tissue that wraps around every muscle and bone in your body, head to toe, all one connected sheet. Made mostly of collagen. Think of it as the packaging around everything, and its supposed to be springy and slide. The reason youve only ever heard the word in plantar FASCIITIS is that the arch of your foot is one big piece of it. The plantar fascia. Its a literal band of fascia running from your heel to your toes. Thats not a coincidence in the name. Thats the whole thing. And fascia has a weakness. When it doesnt get moved and pressed enough, or you stand still all day, it dries out and loses its stretch. It stops sliding and it binds up. Junie called what I had Fascia Freeze. That locked, stuck feeling, worst after youve been still. That is EXACTLY why mine was worst in the morning. Not because Id worn it out overnight. Because Id held still overnight and it had seized. Its like a rubber band left out in the sun. It doesnt snap, it just goes stiff and brittle and stops springing back. Age doesnt freeze your fascia. Stillness does. A lot of people my age just happen to move less, so they blame the number on their birthday instead of the tissue. That one sentence undid 2 years of feeling old. So then the obvious question. If the tissue is dried out and seized, how do you un-seize it. Junie said 2 things have to happen at the same time. You have to physically press and work the tissue to break up the binding, and you have to get fresh blood back into it, because seized fascia is starved of blood and blood is what softens it back up. Do one without the other and it doesnt hold. That ruled out basically everything Id bought. An insert just pads the outside. Its like putting conditioner on hair thats already fried, it coats the surface and feels smooth for an hour, but the damage is down inside the strand and nothing sitting on top of it ever reaches that. Orthotics cushion, they dont work the tissue at all. The night splint just holds it in a stretch. The massage gun pounds the surface but doesnt drive blood in. Not one of them did both things. She uses a little tool on her clients called a Vibit. Its a small roller you put on the floor and press your foot into, and it vibrates the second you lean on it. It has around 90 raised points on it, so thats the pressing part. And the vibration is the blood part, it drives circulation back into the tissue while youre pressing it, which she said is the piece seized fascia is missing. You cant really do one without the other, and this does both at once. The routine is 10 minutes a day, and it comes with guided routines so you dont have to guess. You do your calves first, actually, because your calf muscles are the pump that push the blood down into your feet, then you do the feet. I would never have known that. Ill be honest, I only tried it because of the guarantee. After over $1,000 of junk I wasnt handing over another dime on faith. Its 40% off right now, it comes with the guided routines, and it has a 30 day money back guarantee. You use it for a month, and if your feet dont feel like different feet, you send it back for a full refund. That was the only reason I said fine, Ill try one more thing. They make them in small batches, though, and they do sell out, so its usually a wait for the next run. Thats the only reason Im saying anything now instead of keeping it to myself. You can see if they still have their discount running here https://vibit.com.au/pages/japanesesecret First night I sat on the edge of my bed and pressed my foot into it while I watched TV. The vibration was warm, honestly it felt good, like the arch was finally getting some attention. I didnt expect anything. But by the time the 10 minutes was up, that sharp spot under the arch had eased from about a 7 down to maybe a 3. I sat there waiting for it to come roaring back the way it always did. It didnt. Week 1, the morning step was still there but I wasnt grabbing the dresser by the end of it. Id say it went from a stab to an ache. Week 2 and 3, the mornings got shorter. Id take that first step and it would loosen up in a few steps instead of hanging around till 10am. I did a full color, stood up, and didnt wince. I actually noticed that I DIDNT wince, which tells you how used to it Id gotten. By week 5 I stopped planning my day around my feet. I got up for water in the night and just walked to the kitchen like a normal person. Small thing. Felt enormous. I have a client, Eileen, whos been coming to me every 6 weeks for going on 20 years. She watches me in the mirror the whole time shes in my chair. About 2 months in she caught my eye in the mirror and said, you stopped doing that little shuffle over to the sink. I didnt even know Id had a shuffle. Shed been watching me favor those feet for years and never said a word until it was gone. Its not my age. It was never my age. So look. You can keep believing the number on your birthday is whats wrong with your feet, and keep buying shoes and inserts that cushion a problem thats actually a stuck, dried out piece of tissue. I did that for 2 years and it cost me over $1,000 and a lot of mornings. Or you can spend 10 minutes a day pressing the tissue and getting blood back into it, risk free for a month, and find out if your feet are actually as old as they told you. Last month my daughter asked me to go to the outlet mall again. I said yes before I even thought about it. We walked that whole place, every store, and I never once said my back was bothering me, because it wasnt my back and it never was. I still havent told her about all the times I said no because of my feet. Maybe Ill just show her this. This morning I got up, took my first step, and didnt reach for the dresser. I didnt even think about it until I was already in the kitchen. My husband is still asleep. He never knew. Go here if you want to learn more https://vibit.com.au/pages/japanesesecret P.S. If your foot pain is worst first thing in the morning and eases up as you move, that is the tell that it isnt just wear and tear, its fascia that seized overnight. Thats the exact thing everyone told me was age.