The Heel Pain Playbook

Most heel pain gets better with a handful of unglamorous things done properly, in the right order. The order is the part nobody tells you. So I wrote it down the way I explain it in the exam room — what to do tonight, what to do every day, what to stop doing, and how to tell by day 14 whether it is working.

Not sure it’s plantar fasciitis? Take my one-minute heel pain quiz first: four questions that check the warning signs and point you to the right guide.

What’s in the free 14-day plan

The sample is the front of the book, complete and unchanged:

• The warning signs that mean you should be seen rather than reading
• The pain map — where it hurts narrows down what it is
• Why heels actually hurt, and what I would do if it were my foot
• The 14-day plan: what to do tonight, every day and every other day
• The five moves, with photos, and the mistakes that keep people stuck
• A 14-day tracker you can fill in on screen or print

No sign-up and no email address. Free to share, whole and unchanged.

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What’s in the full book

The sample gets you through the first two weeks. The full Playbook — more than 70 pages, over 130 sources and a proper index — is for everything after that, and for the heels that turn out to be something else.

• The long game — what weeks 3 to 12 should feel like, with a 12-week log that shows the trend you can’t feel
• Shoes, insoles and house shoes, with named 2026 models and three tests you can run in any store aisle
• Home remedies, sorted — the $15 pharmacy fix that beat custom orthotics in a trial, and the viral ones that smell nice and do nothing
• Straight verdicts on the trends: barefoot shoes, massage guns, red light, dry needling, walking pads, GLP-1 “Ozempic feet” and BPC-157 peptides
• Playbooks for your life: on your feet all day, runners, over 60, pregnancy, flat feet and high arches, travel and weddings
• Ten causes of heel pain, and six patients from the exam room — all six said “plantar fasciitis”, and two of them had it
• If you have tried everything: the treatment ladder, the questions patients ask every week, and a plain-English decoder for your X-ray or scan report

Printables for book readers

Have the book? The fill-in pages are here to print as often as you like: the 14-day tracker, the 12-week log, the visit planner and a page for notes. Type into them on screen, or print them and use a pencil.

Three promises

1. No rush to surgery. A year of good care comes first, and more than nine in ten people with plantar fasciitis get better without an operation.
2. No pill pushing. Pain relievers get a paragraph, not a plan.
3. No miracle gadget. If something works, the book says so. If it only works on the box, it says that too.

Who wrote it

I’m Dr. Tom Biernacki, a board-certified foot and ankle surgeon (DPM, FACFAS) and the founder of Balance Foot & Ankle in Howell and Bloomfield Township, Michigan. For ten years I have seen more than a hundred patients a week, and I have done more than 3,000 surgeries — hardly any of them for plantar fasciitis. I write and review the guides on this site. More about Heel Guide.

Questions

Related heel pain guides

• Heel pain quiz: what’s causing your heel pain?
• Heel pain: how to work out what you have
• Plantar fasciitis: why the first step hurts
• Plantar fasciitis exercises and stretches
• Plantar fasciitis treatment
• Heel pain in the morning
• How long plantar fasciitis lasts
• Best shoes for plantar fasciitis
• Insoles and orthotics for plantar fasciitis
• When to worry about heel pain

Further reading

The book cites 131 sources. See all 131, numbered as they appear in the book. Two to start with:

• American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (OrthoInfo). Plantar fasciitis and bone spurs — more than 90% of patients improve within 10 months of starting simple treatment.
• Pfeffer G, Bacchetti P, Deland J, et al. Comparison of custom and prefabricated orthoses in the initial treatment of proximal plantar fasciitis. Foot & Ankle International, 1999.