bobfv’s AchillesBlog

So it is mid-February and I ruptured on May 10, had surgery on May 20, 2015, that puts me 40 weeks and one day post injury, and 38 weeks and 5 days post surgery. I just round it off to 9 months.

My last update was around Thanksgiving, when I did a turkey trot at a fast walking pace. I have made very steady progress since then. I work out on a treadmill 5-7 days a week. My main focus has been on progressing from a “walk” (one foot down at all times) to a jog (periods with both feet off the ground). During December we were out in California for a couple of weeks and I took advantage of the nice weather to take daily 4 mile walks in my Skecher’s Shape-up Comfort Walker shoes. Back here in Northern Virginia, I have been hitting the gym daily. My basic workout has been 40 minutes on the treadmill - the first 10 at a fast walk - 3.5 mph - then the second ten minutes also at 3.5 but increasing to a 10 percent grade by adding one percent per minute - the third ten minutes lowering from 10 percent to zero grade, then the last ten minutes at my fast walk 3.5 mph. In mid-January I had to go for a treadmill stress test ordered by my cardiologist and I did fine, all the way through the fourth stage, which is 4.2 mph at a 17 percent grade!

In the past week I have incorporated jogging into my workouts. My jogging speed is 4.2 mph, a very light jog, but a jog. Today I did 10 minutes fast walk (3.5) then 15 minutes jog (4.2) and the last 5 minutes at 3.5. I hope to get up to 20-30 minutes of jogging within the next week or two, and to then get out on the road and properly jog a 5K in the early spring. My jogging is sure to help my Achilles heal (hey - double entendre!) as the jogging action adds a plyometric push-off aspect to the motion.

In addition to the walking and jogging, I have continued with the strength and balance exercises I learned in physical therapy. About 3-4 times a week I do 100 heel raises of different types. I can just barely do a one legged heel raise on the healing leg - I am a little disappointed because it is so easy to do on my good leg, but I am trying to remain patient. I also do toe presses on a leg press machine, and I walk on my toes using a Theraband for resistance. I also use an “Indo-Board” for eccentric strength and balance training, and do one legged floor toe touches.

My walking is absolutely fine - I am a little sore sometimes but I have completely lost any trace of a limp. I force myself to use a full range of motion when I go up and down stairs, and I work through morning stiffness when I wake up.

I am not taking any type of medicine since I don’t have any pain. I am very careful about my footwear now. I wear Skechers Shape-ups as much as I can. For gym shoes I am wearing Asics Gel-Kayano 22’s with the insole removed and replaced with blue ‘Superfeet” orthotics. I have a pair of low Gore-tex Under Armour boots for bad weather and I have a gray merino wool Superfeet orthotic in them. I am also back in my favorite daily shoes, a pair of low cut Vibram-soled Timberland shoes, and I got low profile carbon fiber Superfeet liners for them. My dress shoes are Allen Edmonds Park Avenue shoes - I don’t have to wear them every day, and I can’t get even the lowest profile black Superfeet into them, but I do okay when wearing them.

My scar has healed very well - I continue to use Bio-Oil once or twice a day, and a couple of days a week I use a silicon sheet over the scar.

So I am hoping that the last three months of my healing - taking me up to my one year anniversary on May 10 - will continue to go smoothly and I will continue to progress. My goals in the next three months are to be able to run a 5K in 45 minutes or less, and to be able to do one legged calf raises evenly on both legs.

Best of luck to everyone in your healing.

Hard to believe it but I got out the calendar (as I do every Wednesday) and ticked off the number of weeks since my surgery on Wednesday, May 20, and today marks 20 weeks!  At this point, I really don’t remember that I ruptured my Achilles unless I think about it. My gait is completely normal, but I feel a very slight “hitch” in my right ankle when walking in flat shoes. I am wearing either well-supported shoes with “Superfeet” arch supports or specialty shoes like Skechers Shape-Ups on a daily basis.

What I CAN do: I can walk normally up and down stairs, as I have a full range of motion.  I am unlimited in terms of cardio work on a bicycle, elliptical trainer, or Stairmaster. 3-4 times a week I do specific strength and balance exercises in the gym, these include leg presses focused on eccentric strength, stability pad work, one-legged yoga poses on my “bad” leg, two legged calf raises, and plyometric hopping exercises. On the treadmill I walk at a 5km per hour (3.1 mph) pace for 30-60 minutes.  I have absolutely no fear of rerupturing at this point and I work hard to put stress on my calf muscles as I seek to rebuild them.

What I cannot do is run - and I define running as leaving both feet at the same time in a forward motion.  I feel like I could if I wanted to, but I am waiting at least another month while I continue to strengthen myself.  I feel like I could probably do a one legged calf raise on my “bad” leg, but I am going to wait on that as well - in the mean time, I do about 100 2-legged calf raises a day and focus more and more of my weight on the “bad” foot.  My biggest issue is eccentric strength.  For example, when walking down stairs, I put the ball of my ATR foot down first and it is still very hard to prevent the heel from just plonking down - I just don’t have that eccentric strength (strength as the calf muscles lengthen) yet, but I recognize it and I am working on it every day.

The scar looks okay - I rub Bio-Oil on it a couple of times a day. It is small and even, the surgeon did a great job on it.  I have lost 15 pounds of the 20 that I gained since the injury, and I am going to try to keep the momentum up and lose a little more.

That’s it!  Very pleased with going the surgical route, with my early weight-bearing protocol and with getting in to physical therapy early (3-weeks post-op.)  I am going to “walk” a couple of 5K’s this Fall - whereas my pre-injury 5K time was around half an hour, I just want to do the distance in an hour (I have been doing this on my own, but It will be fun to join an organized 5K event.)

Best of luck to you all in your continued recoveries.

Every Wednesday since the day of my surgery on May 20, I think about how another week has passed.  I am really doing great and can honestly say that I am better than I was before the rupture (bearing in mind that I had a diagnosed moderate tear for a few months before the rupture.)  In the past two weeks I traveled on business from my home outside Washington DC to New Delhi, India and back again and I am happy to report that I experienced no swelling or discomfort in the repaired ankle at all.  I have not been icing or elevating just because I don’t need to.

What I have been doing is exercising.  I am back on the elliptical trainer for 30 minute pain-free cardio workouts and when I have time I follow that with a 30 minute walk at 3.1 mph on the treadmill.  I pick 3.1 mph because that is the distance of a 5K run.  Before my injury my standard 5K time was around 30 minutes, so I feel that now I could easily complete (although not RUN) a 5K with an hour or greater limit, so I am starting to look for one here in the area.  I have also been keeping up with the strength and balance training that I learned before I was discharged from PT.  For example, I just got back from the gym where I did 50 2-leg calf raises, 3 sets of 15 balance exercises where I stand on the bad leg and bend down and touch a yoga block with my opposite hand, plus the most important exercise for me now - eccentric strengthening.  Eccentric strength is strength in your muscle as you are extending it, so if you imagine yourself standing on your forefoot - you use eccentric strength when you lower yourself on to your heel.  As recently as 2 weeks ago all I could manage was to drop my heel, but with continued work I am finally getting some control over the process.  Besides walking, I use a leg press machine with 90 pounds (the amount is not important as long as you have some resistance) - then I do basically a 2-legged toe raise on the machine, and I just use my bad ankle to lower myself back to a little past neutral - then back up on two toes, down on one as before.  This eccentric strengthening has really been helping me and I have noticed that my heel soreness has almost disappeared, since I am no longer dropping my heel when I walk.  Going down stairs, I also practice eccentric strengthening by going down to the next step on my toe and lowering the heel.

I have completely normal range of motion, very little pain, and my gait is almost back to normal.  I don’t think I have a limp but my wife tells me I still have a little bit of one.  Oh well - keep doing strength and balance exercises!

For workouts I am using my old running shoes - Asics Gel-Kayano 20’s, with green Superfeet insoles.  I am mostly using the Skechers Shape-up Comfort Walkers for everyday use and have even taken my dogs on a couple of 2-3 mile weekend walks on fairly smooth terrain.  I would like to get back to hiking the trails around my house more regularly now that the weather is nice, which I should be able to do.

My scar looks fine - I rub Bio-Oil on it several times a day mostly because I like how the Bio-Oil smells.

That’s it for now - my advice to everyone starting out with the injury is that the time actually passes quickly - get in to PT as soon as you can and start to reclaim your life from his nasty injury.  I am very pleased I went the surgical route - but of course my perspective is that I did not have any surgical complications, so I guess that is easy for me to say.  It gets better - hang in there!

Hi everyone - I have had quite a bit of progress and passed several milestones since my last post and I wanted to share that information with you!

First off, physical therapy is invaluable - get yourself a therapist you are comfortable with and go and work hard! My therapist Chris is fantastic. He showed me how to ensure I was getting muscle activation when doing my exercises. As my strength has increased he has had me up on my toes, and on the leg press machine doing eccentric strengthening. I have been doing daily cardio at the gym and repeating the leg exercises every other day.

The first milestone of the week came Monday, August 31. I went to the gym and got on to the elliptical trainer and I had a great, 30 minute workout with no pain or swelling in my ankle. Up until Monday I had only been doing the exercise bike for cardio, but adding the elliptical is already making me feel better. I was sore in the evening just because my hips and quads have not been worked out like that in some time, but I will take it slow and get back in to it, alternating bike and elliptical days.

The second milestone came on Tuesday, September 1 - my temporary disabled parking permit expired! I am sad and happy at the same time - much more happy than sad because I don’t need it any more. Obviously - the convenience factor was nice, but thank God I can walk again and I hope I never need one of those passes again.

The third milestone was on Wednesday, September 2 - 15 weeks to the day since my Achilles Tendon Repair surgery! Feeling better every day - no pain and little soreness!

The fourth milestone, like the second, is also bittersweet. Today September 3 I had my last PT session and was officially discharged from PT. It was a great session, about an hour and 15 minutes and I did all my exercises. At the end, my therapist Chris gave me lots of advice for what to do going forward. He had me do some little plyometric hops on both feet which I should continue to do as I can tolerate it, and he showed me how to do planks and lunges on my toes without stressing or hyperextending the Achilles tendon.

I am so pleased with the progress, with the progressive, early weight bearing approach by my surgeon, with the support of my family (especially my sweet wife who drove me around for 2 months!), and the fantastic care I received at physical therapy and Town Center Orthopeadics in Reston, Virginia. I realize I still need to continue to work on healing and to watch myself, but I have a big goal to run the Army Ten Miler road race here in DC a year from now, just as I did a year ago, and several years previously.

Another thing I want to call out are Skechers Shape-up Comfort Walker shoes. These shoes are magic - when I wear them I do not limp and I took my dogs for 3 and 4 mile walks in them this past weekend. Buy them on Amazon or from the Skechers web site - about a hundred dollars very well spent!

Best of luck to you all on your recovery journeys. If you want to discuss any aspect of my recovery journey I am happy to help if I can - Email me at BobFV@aol.com .