I first saw a non-specialist, my internist, before seeing Dr. Ichikawa. If my internist had given me the advice Dr. I did, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, since he’s not a specialist. But Dr. I is a podiatrist and sees patients with my foot issue, plantar faciitis, often. He should know better! Not only that, all the misinformation he gave me, he was very sure of himself, very unequivocal that what he was telling me was THE CORRECT ANSWER, when it most definitely WAS NOT.
I told him my symptoms and he said I had plantar faciitis. That part was correct. He told me to go to REI and buy green superfeet insoles. That was incorrect.
Both the place – why didn’t he tell me to go to one of the specialty shoe stores where the staff know about foot issues and carry a variety of insoles for different foot issues and feet shapes??? REI doesn’t specialize in feet medical issues and is notorious for rotating (some of) their staff through departments so you’re lucky when you get a staff personwho specializes in and knows about that store dept.
And the product – when I did finally figure out to go to two different specialty shoe stores, both of them immediately looked at my feet and said green Superfeet were not going to help me due to my high arch, and recommended an insole that really helped and was appropriate for my feet. The new insoles (Cadence) helped immediately. I doubt that REI even carries them.
Dr. Ichikawa gave me a sheet with exercises to do. The sheet says if you have questions, to call the UW PT clinic. Some of the exercises didn’t make sense. I tried calling the clinic but they said they couldn’t help me since I wasn’t a patient of them. So why does Dr. Ichikawa hand this out with incorrect info saying the clinic will help you?? He did not give me a referral to the PT clinic so that’s why they wouldn’t help me. I asked him how often and how long I’d need to do the exercises. He said something like 3x a day for the rest of your life. Glad that too turned out to be incorrect.
If he’d spent anytime discussing when and where I felt pain, he (or a PT) could have told me what ones to do and what to not do. But he just gave me the sheet and said do them all.
So glad that also was incorrect. Once I got the correct insoles, I’ve had no problems and no need to do the exercises.
I’ve usually had good luck with UW Med. Dr. Ichikawa is certainly the exception to that. Find someone else.

Submitted Aug. 11, 2019