About an hour ago I was hopping from the couch to my knee scooter and my knee partially missed. My foot in the cast thumped he ground pretty hard right on my exposed toes. They were still numb and a bot of pain shot thru them that radiated for a while…its still radiating. My achilles doesn’t really feel any different…just down in the arch of my foot. I am not sure if I should call the doc or not.
So yesterday I had the best day so far post surgery…and overdid it due to confidence…then I paid for it today. I have been keeping my leg elevated about 95% of the time watching tv, etc. Yesterday my swelling seemed to never have existed. I had no pain in my achilles or anywhere else under my cast. I barely even noticed it. I could tell that my foot and ankle were not swollen because I could feel space in the cast. My surgical sweet spot did not feel wet. It was easy to wiggle my toes and I had probably about 50% feeling all over my foot all the way to the heel.
Then today I had a long appointment after working 5 hours. My wife had an errand to run on top of that. Then a trip out for dinner. I was in the car for probably about 2 hours. I elevated my foot as often as possible, but I think it was too much. My foot began to swell…I could feel it. It was telling me it wanted to rest. By the time I got home I was experiencing ‘achilles revenge.” Major quakes, weird stinging sensations running from my calf down my achilles. Toes seemed to swell and numb too. I elevated it and drank a bunch of water and then 4 advil. . It took about 3 hours to seem like the swelling went down but still a lot of quaking and tingling. Word to the wise…don’t feel too confident and overdo it just because you have a great day!
In 2010 I regularly ran 8-minute, one mile sprints. I had to meet certain physical standards. I developed a microtear in my RT achilles. Plenty of ice and a little rest and I was back into my physical regime. I worked out 5 days a week doing various weight and cardio workouts. Every 8 months or so my achilles would ache. First Dr. used ultrasound and told me to buy rubber-soled comfort shoes and not push myself so much. Over the next 7 years I would ride a roller coaster of aching achilles due to microtears. I went to PT in 2011 and again in 2015. In between, I hiked a lot, traveled a lot, and continued to be very active. But I would be down for the count with aches and a grape sized knot on my achilles. I would often massage it. Getting out of bed in the morning was like hell.
In 2016 I tried the PRP injection. My new Dr. said that he had success with it, but had to have two separate sessions. My body did not respond, and it became increasingly difficult to walk. I went thru one more round of PT and if that did not work then I would elect for the surgery. I attended a PT session the week prior to my surgery to get experience using a knee walker. The therapist had a look of horror on her face when she read the procedure. She said that this was a very difficult procedure to recover from and it would probably be about 9 months before I was jogging again. PT warned me to take the pain meds, because this was one surgery you want to stay ahead of in the pain dept.
On November 3, 2017 I underwent achilles insertional tendinopathy surgery with gastroc lengthening and correction of plantar fasciitis. The pain doc administered a nerve block behind my knee. The attending nurse said goodnight in 3…2…1…and I was like…”when am I going to be out?” She couldn’t believe I was still awake…a side effect of being a bamf. Then nite nite. I woke up in the rehab area with a huge white surgical cast on my leg. They came in and cut the cast down the middle and wrapped it with a jumbo ace bandage for swelling. I was basically bed-ridden for two weeks. The percocet kicked the pain away, but the constipation was horrible. I tried to get off the pills after a week. I used a leg elevation pillow I found on amazon and a rented knee walker.
I was really claustrophobic in the surgical cast. There is actually a medical condition called cast claustrophobia. I felt trapped in the cast and had bad cabin fever. During the first week, my toes were numb and covered in some yellow coloring. They tingled when I moved them. My tendon experienced a lot of tingling, and other sensations similar to pop rocks and thumping pressure running down the bottom of my foot and quaking. My achilles and heel always felt wet. I did a sponge bath as often as I could. I think the hardest part was not being able to shower. I found that using ambien to sleep at night helped a lot. I put one pillow down and two pillows parallel and rested my leg in the middle. I put a small pillow under my foot so that it didn’t droop down too low and hurt.
November 15, I had the surgucal cast removed. My stitches looked ok. They placed another cast on my leg. 4 weeks in this one and then 6 weeks in a walking boot. I bought the vacocast (due to arrive Nov. 30).
