I had it some years ago, and it lamed me pretty badly. I never knew what caused it, although at the time I was walking a lot on city sidewalks in ordinary flats and loafers. I thought my heels must have got horribly bruised somehow, but the doctor diagnosed plantar fasciitis, which I had never heard of.
It probably would have helped if I’d stopped those daily one-mile walks when the pain began.
The doctor prescribed cushioned insoles and Vioxx, an NSAID for pain that was later pulled off the market (that’s how long ago this was). They both helped.
I had to buy a larger size shoe to use the insoles, so I bought only one or two pairs and got pretty tired of them. I also got tired of taking the pain pills. I don’t like pills anyway. After a year, I simply quit, and I guess the p.f. had gone away sometime during that year. I put the cushioned shoes aside too and went happily back to my old ones.
The downside of the meds was that when I stopped taking them, all the aches and pains they’d masked for a year were back in full force. I had to get used to them all, all at once.
If I ever feel heel pain like that again, though, I’ll take steps (haha) right away.
Someone else told me she’d had p.f. and it never came back once she got rid of it. And another person said hers had flared up every few years over a long period of time.