Dear Karl, simon et al

Much cut Simon said:

There are very good reasons why the taping I use for plantar 
fasciitis, providing the pure diagnosis of plantar fasciitis has been 
made.....

I agree with Simon's 6 points. Where taping differs from an orthosis 
is that taping deals in the same currency as the damaging force 
TENSILE FORCE, the tape takes tension. When the plantar fascia has  a 
tensile load applied to it, the tape is already in tension and taking 
some of that load, it will have a direct influence on the loading 
rate and/or maximal tensile force ( no idea which ?) applied to the 
plantar fascia. An orthosis on the other hand will alter the tensile 
forces being applied through the plantar fascia by altering foot 
joint positions and motions and so act in a less direct manner. It was this concept on which the 
principle of the UCBL device was based, i.e when the hindfoot was supinated 
and the forefoot pronated the plantar fascia was in a shortened 
position-slackened.

A couple of years ago I published a paper in the Foot on the use of 
Low-Dye taping in the management of plantar fasciitis. The first part 
looked at foot pressures and the difference between barefoot and 
L-Dye. With the L-Dye, peak pressures and the area under the pressure time 
curve were reduced under the heel, 2nd and 3rd mets and increased 
under the 4th & 5th mets. For the 1st and hallux these parameters didn't 
change but the time to initial loading of the 1st did, i.e it loaded 
earlier. Another interesting anecdote was in 3 of the subjects the 
hallux loaded before the1st met when  barefoot, with the tape this situation 
reversed.

 The second part of the study looked at symptom levels, the 
numbers (9) were very small. Symptoms were plotted over the first two 
days of wearing the tape and then one day after it had been removed. 
8/9 heels still had pain relief even one day after the tape was 
removed.

Now there are a number of studies that show L-Dye and H-Dye lose 
their mechanical effect after 20 minutes exercise. Ator et al 1991 
and Vicenzino et al 1997.

The question is WHY are symptoms still relived after 3-4 days when 
the mechanical effect as been lost after 20 minutes ?

Is it an accumulative off-loading effect?

Or, here's something for the melting pot:

 Lohrer et al 1999, it was originally published in American J of Sports Medicine and then 
reprinted in Foot & Ankle. They investigated neuromuscular responses 
to two  ankle tapings. Proprioceptive amplification ratio's were 
calculated. There were improvements immediately after taping, but 
after exercise it reduced, as expected. What wasn't expected was 24 
hours later the ratio improved again. The authors offered that this may 
have resulted from a physiologic neuromuscular regeneration 
(proprioceptive effect) or mechanical restabilisation of the tape 
itself ?. I know this was ankle strapping but could one of the L-Dye tapings effects( that is different 
from an orthoses) be of a 
proprioceptive nature ? . How the hell we research this I've no idea.

Just a thought

Regards

Jai.


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