The only device built
for fasciosis —
not fasciitis.

I've been a med-surg nurse for 9 years. For the last three of them I was doing the math before every shift — how bad will it be by hour ten, can I make it through a third in a row, do I have enough ibuprofen in my locker. I tried everything. Custom orthotics, two cortisone shots, Hokas, a night splint I wore for four months straight. The cortisone worked for maybe six weeks then the pain came back worse than before. By the time I found the Lightstep I had completely stopped picking up overtime. That was real money gone every month. Within three weeks of using it my mornings were different. Not perfect — but the broken glass feeling when I first stood up was less sharp. By week six I walked to my car after a 3-in-a-row and realized I wasn't limping. I sat in the driver's seat and actually cried. I said yes to overtime the following week for the first time in over a year.

I'm an ICU nurse. I walk 12 hours on concrete and I do not stop. By hour eight my heels felt like someone had been beating the soles of my feet with a stick. I started standing on one leg at the nurses' station just to give the other one a break — my coworkers started calling it my flamingo stand. I had spent close to $1,500 on things that didn't work. I almost didn't buy the Lightstep because I was so tired of wasting money. What got me was the science — the part about zero inflammatory cells. As a nurse that landed differently than a product promise. I understood immediately why the cortisone had failed me. I've been using it two months. The flamingo stand is gone. My manager hasn't pulled me aside again. And last week a patient asked why I seemed different — more present. I didn't tell her my feet had stopped screaming at me. But that was the reason.

I'm a new grad. I know how that sounds — new grad complaining about her feet. But I started my 3x12s and within four months I had plantar fasciitis so bad I was crying at the end of shifts. Not quietly. Sobbing, unable to put weight on my heels, sitting in my car in the parking garage at 7:30 AM wondering if I had made a mistake choosing nursing. I am 24 years old. I felt like a 90-year-old woman getting out of that car every single morning. I found the Lightstep through another nurse in my cohort. Thirteen minutes on my couch after every shift, feet on the device, watching my phone. By week four the morning dread was different. By week eight I stopped dreading getting out of bed entirely. I have 40 years of nursing ahead of me. I needed this to work and it did.

I fought it for eighteen months. Then I transferred to a clinic role because my heels couldn't handle the floor anymore. I told myself it was a career move. It wasn't. I missed bedside every single day. I missed walking in with a critically ill patient and knowing I was going to make a difference in the next twelve hours. Sitting at a desk answering phones felt like a slow kind of grief. I found the Lightstep eight weeks ago. I've been using it every morning before I stand up and every evening when I get home. My heel pain is maybe 30% of what it was. I have a bedside interview next week. I don't know if I'll get the position but I know my feet are not the reason I'll say no. That is something I could not have said four months ago.

When I read that night shift detail in the Lightstep material I had to put my phone down for a minute. I've been on nights for six years. I always healed slower, recovered slower, felt worse than my day shift colleagues — I blamed my schedule. I didn't know it was literally my body's repair cells running at half capacity while I was loading my plantar fascia 10,000 times per shift. The Lightstep was the first thing I tried that was designed around how tissue actually repairs itself instead of just masking the pain. I use it before I sleep after a night shift — fifteen minutes, pulse mode, feet on the device. Eight weeks in. My first steps when I wake up are not what they were. For a night shift nurse with six years of accumulated damage, that is not nothing. That is everything.

ER nursing is not 12 hours. It's 13, 14, sometimes 16 by the time the department clears. I've had plantar fasciitis in both feet — one after the other, FML — and I spent three and a half years trying to fix it. Injections, walking boot, ice, massage, orthotics, every brand of shoe the internet recommended. In the end it persisted because I had no way to get off my feet without quitting my job, and quitting was not an option. The Lightstep is the first thing I've used that doesn't require me to rest. I use it while I'm already resting. Couch, scrubs still on, feet on the device, twenty minutes. That's it. Three months in. I still have some pain after back to back shifts. But I got out of bed this morning and I walked to the bathroom like a normal person. I did not slide down the banister. I did not yelp. For three and a half years I could not say that.

I told four nurses about the Lightstep before I even finished my first month. That's not like me. I'm the skeptic in my unit — I've watched too many nurses spend money on things that don't work. What made me try it was the zero inflammatory cells study. I'm a nurse. I read the research. If the tissue isn't inflamed then every anti-inflammatory treatment I've ever tried was aimed at nothing. That made sense of three years of failure in one sentence. Six weeks in: I make it to hour ten without shifting my weight to my better foot. I walk to my car after a third consecutive shift and I am not limping. I said yes to overtime twice this month. I have not done that in two years. Four nurses in my unit have ordered it. When this works you tell the people you work with. That is just what nurses do.

Eight years in oncology. You do not leave your patients. You do not call out. You push through because there is no one to cover and you know what it means when a patient doesn't get proper care. So I pushed through for two years with plantar fasciitis that by hour ten felt like razor blades at the bottom of my feet. I was physically present but mentally I was managing pain instead of managing patients. That guilt — of not being fully there — was worse than the physical pain. I found the Lightstep and I was honest with myself: one more thing to try. Fifteen minutes before my shift, fifteen minutes after. Week three something shifted in my mornings. Week six I finished a 3-in-a-row and came home and played with my kids instead of collapsing on the couch. Week ten I was fully present for a patient conversation I would have rushed through six months ago because standing still hurt too much. I'm not the nurse I used to be. I'm the nurse I was before this started.