cserpent’s AchillesBlog

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Thank you Junebug! I hope it’s gone for good too. I just read your blog! Yikes a stress fracture! That’s what I’ve been trying hard to avoid I actually might be running for 15 minutes by the time I reach the 4 week mark - LOL! I’m not running 15 minutes straight - I alternate running and walking (I guess the term for that now is “Jeffing” - LOL - though in the past everyone just called it run/walk). I’m up to 11 minutes now - over a span of 22 minutes. I’m still working on my aerobic capacity so maybe by the time I’m able to get back on the pitch I’ll be able to run 15 minutes straight.

Good news for you! I really hope your bone inflammation is gone for good. Now you can just concentrate on getting the achilles in fighting shape. Like you said, you’ve definitely had a taste of both types of recovery…really short and really long! I think I’ll have to take a page from your book and start out much slower with the running thing. Maybe 10 minutes here and there and work up from there.

Thank you Paul! So far so good! It will be a bit longer for you - LOL! Heck it has been a LOT longer for me. I’m just hoping that the bone inflammation is gone for good. I get some pain and stiffness after running but it seems to be the achilles rather than the bone. So I’m also working on heel drops on the stairs and calf raises - straight and bent knee - to strengthen the achilles. I only hope your healing path is a short one! I’ve had both short and long healing paths and I much prefer the short one - LOL!

My last 2 running sessions were 8 minutes and then 10.5 minutes. I may be at 15 minutes in another couple of weeks. Then I can try running for longer periods of time. When I start that I’ll have to do it on a field with a soccer ball. 10 minutes of running is already boring enough.

That’s awesome cserpent! I would love to be able to run again. I’m 15 weeks post surgery so figure it’s going to be a little longer still.

And tonight I ran for 10 minutes. A little improvement each time!

One my 15 minutes run/walk a couple of nights ago I was able to run for 8 min! Woohoo! Making some progress.

I did a 5K last night. It was the Black Light Run and these are a lot of fun if you don’t mind getting glow powder thrown on you and enjoy dancing under black lights. I mostly walked it (as did the majority of the people there) but did run in some spots. My achilles is sore, which is the same thing that I felt after my first run. So I’m hoping the bone inflammation is gone and now I just have to get my achilles used to working hard again.

Thank you Junebug! It was frustrating to go back in the boot but the boot was better than the alternative of a stress fracture. That would have put me back on the scooter I hope it’s calmed down too. I get to try light running this weekend so I’ll know then whether it’s happy now or not.

Ugh. I’m sorry to read about your recent bone inflammation struggles. With how well your other foot went, I thought you would be out on the soccer field long by now. Hope it is starting to calm down by now. It must be super frustrating to go back to the boot at this point!

Yes the heel bone is inflamed. It was very visible in the MRI. And yes I had surgery over a year ago to remove bone spurs. NSAIDS sort of work but for something like this the only thing to really resolve it is giving the bone a rest. If I don’t give it a rest then I’ll get a fracture and that will take even longer to recover from. And now that I know the somewhat narrow range I have to keep it happy I can better gauge when to wear the boot and when not to. If I’ll be walking a goodly amount then I wear it. If I won’t be walking too much then I don’t. I didn’t think I walked much over the weekend - but checking my phone step count I actually did. So I’m going to aim for no more than 6500 steps without the boot for the next 3 weeks. The foot actually was OK after Disneyland so the boot definitely takes the stress off the bone. My doc says it takes about 3 weeks for the bone to remodel at each “phase” of recovery. And I’ll be upping my calcium intake while all this is going on.

Cserpent, when you say your bone is inflamed, is that on your heal? I think I remember your having the surgery to remove bone spurs. Have you tried steroid injections? Do NSAIDs work at all?

Well I had a setback over the weekend. Apparently there is a definite limit to how much I can walk without the boot. On my one day of exercise walking I did about 6400 steps. Over the weekend I was at a soccer tournament selling jewelry and watching my friends play. I thought I spent a lot of time sitting but ended up with 8700 steps on Saturday and 8200 on Sunday and my heel was really unhappy! Since I knew I was going to Disneyland on Tuesday I wore the boot most of Monday and wore it the entire time at Disneyland (21500 steps!!). I know the step count isn’t accurate on my phone but it’s for relative comparison it works. So now I’m back on restricted movement until the heel bone calms down. Then I’ll restart exercise walking. Hopefully I’ll get to light running in 3 weeks or so.

I am still icing. Since my problem is an inflamed bone I don’t know that heat will help but icing should.

As you ramp up your activities, do consider going back to an ice/heat regimen. I use ice and heat any time I run more than a mile. It seems to be helping with the recovery.

I hope all is going well with introducing light running. Best of luck to you!!

Thank you Bruiser! It sure is frustrating! Hopefully I’m finally at the point where I can make forward progress again. I’ll know after I start walking for exercise again.

Sorry to hear about the inflammation. That’s gotta be very frustrating. Congratulations on one year nonetheless!

Thank you tbombs517! Unfortunately I’m using my right foot as my comparison and I was back to ALL my normal activities, with no pain, at 6-7 months. I have absolutely no problems with my right achilles now (same surgery back in 2/2017). As I complained about the slow pace of recovery for my left foot my doc told me that my right foot healed exceptionally fast so it really wasn’t a good benchmark. Sigh! So I fully expect to get back to all my previoius activities with no pain for my left as well. And the problem now isn’t my achilles - it’s my foot bone. But I’ve done some research and some of the problem could be that as I’ve gotten older I need to eat more protein and since I switched to a vegan diet in late 2017 for health reasons I’m probably getting less protein than I did in early 2017. Normal protein needs for younger women is around 45g. For 60+ they recommend 70+ g. And, since I’m 58, I need to be aiming more for 70g and I wasn’t eating anywhere near that much protein. Since protein is used to help all kinds of body repair it could be the reason my bone hasn’t gotten as strong this time around. So from now on I’m

I ruptured my right Achilles 11 years ago (I’m currently 8 weeks post-surgery on my left Achilles). FWIW, my right tendon and leg never got back to pre-rupture form. I did get back into pre-rupture activities like distance running and lacrosse but there was always a bit of pain. Frankly, my right Achilles still gets sore today when overworked like it is now as I’m not using my left leg much.

Key for me in understanding when I was ready to go full bore was differentiating between types of pain. Once I got to a point where pain only came following heavy activity and the pain subsided after relatively short periods of rest, I felt like I was as healed as I was going to get.

Of course, listen to your body and to your PT and ortho and rest when you feel you need to. It’s a long road but there is a finish line!

The MRI showed inflammation of the heel bone but not where the achilles insertion is. According to my doc this is the precursor to microfractures. So the good news is that there are no microfractures. The bad news is I have to just walk for the next month. Even a spin class riled things up since my foot swelled the next day. So I’m back to swimming and rowing for aerobics and I can do seated weight lifting. Nothing that is high impact on my heel bone. I see the doc again in a month. I’ll get a LOT of walking in France next week since we’re going there to watch the Women’s World Cup. If the foot starts to pain me and swell then I need to use the boot until it calms down again. So the boot will be in the suit case.

The big thing I have to keep in mind is that any foot pain or swelling means I need to back off on activity. I got so used to ignoring any soreness over the last decade+ that unless I get actual sharp pain I basically just ice and advil. I did get pain after my first game and stopped. But from that point on my foot was sore but not really painful so it was no big deal to me.

It’s funny too because

I agree Oakmanii. I sure hope something shows up in the MRI. The foot was definitely not healing as I thought it should. I’m also upping my calcium intake to make sure there is plenty available for building up bone. I figure it can’t hurt and it might help.

Perhaps it is better to identify the problem, as it seemed the foot was healing so slowly. Perhaps you will get a good tweak that will cause the whole healing to go faster and better.

Hi Oakmanii! I do low box jumps - LOL! And I won’t do more aggressive training compared to what I did before. I’ll get back to playing 3-4 soccer games a week, a weight lifting class and 2 HIIT classes. I’m doing one HIIT class and the weight lifting class now and will start playing soccer next week. I’m waiting on the 2nd HIIT class until after I’m in better aerobic shape. I’ll be doing a LOT of stair climbing when we go to France next month, but I don’t make a point of climbing stairs since it is very boring. I have a problem - if doing an exercise is boring then I won’t keep doing it. That’s just one reason I can’t stand running, just for the sake of running. I’ll gladly run in a soccer game. Typically for a warm up I do a little jogging (forward and backward), side stepping, lunges and, once the muscles are warmed up, I do stretches.

You are doing much more jumping, athleticism than I was planning on doing. Do you intend to do box jumps? Did you do them before? In general, do you plan on doing more ‘aggressive’ training than what you were doing before the injury? I see guys climbing stairs and I have no interest in doing that, as I mostly just stretched out before sports. But maybe you think it is necessary?

wow great exercise, i really enjoy your post, thanks for share with us

If i started doing all that exercise punctually, i will become a beast in no time.

Yep tiny steps Fred. Your achilles is not only weak, but not too flexible after surgery or atr. Glad you’re doing heel raises in the pool! You may be able to do them out of the pool now by leaning on your arms onto a bed with most weight in your arms. That is how I was instructed to start. Put as much weight into your arms as you need in order to be able to do them. As the achilles gets stronger you get more upright with less and less weight in the arms.

As to PT - I can’t really speak to that. I’m with Kaiser and they seem to be more in the mode of checking things out then giving me a list of exercises to do at home and come back in 2, 3 or 4 weeks for a progress check. I don’t know if that is because my PT knows I’m self motivated and go to the gym on my own or if that is what they do for all patients. I do know that those on private insurance get a LOT more PT sessions. However from what I’ve read many of those sessions are exactly the same exercises I was told to do at home.

I had missed this post, thanks so much for the details! So you walked with tiny steps and no cane. I noticed that my problem is that I dont push off on my bad foot when I move forward. It is so weak with that now. But I am doing heel raises in a pool with water up to my neck!!
I see PT every week, is that too much? Im at 10 weeks now.

Hi Fred! I did some swimming and when I was just starting out in 2 shoes and just beginning strengthening I would walk back/forth in the pool and, when I got the OK, did heel raises in the pool initially since there is not as much weight on the achilles in the pool. I never walked with a cane, but I didn’t start walking in the boot until 5 weeks and only used a crutch for a little while. I couldn’t go barefoot for many months due to 6 weeks of NWB and all the loss of strength and bone mass that results. Yes you have all of the above to look forward to! Initially as you gain strength you’ll just balance on 1 foot on flat ground, then balance on a pillow or bosu. Once you get enough strength you start going up on your toes with both feet and eventually with just the one foot. You’ll start out leaning on a bed or counter so you hold a lot of weight in your arms and as the muscles/tendons get stronger you get more upright until you’re able to do it standing tall. I won’t even give you a timeline. My own 2 feet had VERY different timelines! My right foot was fully recovered at 6 months. This one is still recovering and I’

Great! Your last one! Im finishing up my first month. I thought I was doing good until they had me try to stand on one foot, step up on squishy ground, etc…. Walking in bare feet was trouble too.
So what little milestones and order do I have ahead of me?
walking without a cane
toe lifts
heel lifts
going up stairs
walking in bare feet
jumping
???

And did you ever try water therapy?

It sounds like your achilles is taking the long road to recovery like my left foot is beginnersmind. And the calf atrophies a LOT and very quickly. And it takes a long time to get the strength back. It’s good that you’re making progress. I assume you’re doing assisted heel raises on one leg? That’s how they had me start. Lean on a bed or counter so most of your weight is in your arms and do the 1 footed heel raise. Put as much weight into the arms as needed so you can do the heel raise. As your calf gets stronger you slowly get more upright until, eventually, you’re doing it standing straight.

As much as I detest running I finally forced myself to do it - LOL! I ran/walked for 15 minutes last night after my weight lifting class. Achilles feels a bit tight but doesn’t hurt so it’s ok with that level of exertion. The PT sheet said start with 1 minute of running/1 minute of walking alternating. Well neither my foot nor my aerobic capacity could handle that so I did 30 sec/30 sec initially and was doing 30-45 sec of running with about a minute of walking by the end. LOL! I’m going to start being very diligent and d

At this point cserpent, I feel like that would be almost miraculous? I am at 11.5 weeks now and I am in 2 shoes full time and walking but with a fair limp and I have ZERO push-off. My calf has atrophied more than I anticipated (the nerve damage? Or maybe just what was meant to be?) and it is hard to imagine myself gaining enough strength to jump in a months time.

Would be awesome though! I am squatting a bit in PT and pretty aggressive doing marching and sumo walks, standing calf raises, etc.

Leg feels strong, calf feels almost dead. Just starting to activate a bit more the past few days. Still can’t remotely get up on two legs and transfer my weight to the repaired leg for an eccentric drop.

Anyway, that’s my update for now. I have progressed fairly well in recent weeks!

Hope the same has continued for you

You might be doing it earlier beginnersmind! I was doing it at month 4 with my right foot if I recall correctly. But, as I’ve found out, your foot will decide when - LOL! It has its own calendar.

Awesome cserpent! You are jumping now, that is incredible progress. Good on you, it is inspiring! Gives me hope that I’ll be doing the same at month 6 and 7.

Keep up the good work!

Good progress!
I felt that icing is very important. When I ice at the end of the day, even for just a short period of time, I can sleep much better and less stiffness when I wake up.

Alright thanks for the meloxicam update. I don’t think it is causing me weight gain but I am feeling some effects from it. Some say it takes a week to kick in so I am giving it a chance. Few more days then I’ll stop if no improvement.

That is weird. Tough one, you couldn’t have known without experiencing it. But your back now, Each of us process pain, discomfort, swelling, etc in different ways and different intensities. I will have to keep an eye out because i still have some numbness in my lower leg and calf. Today for example, I did about 30-45minutes of walking PWB 50%. I am swollen around the ankle and achilles, but I don’t feel any pain, or even discomfort. In the boot I felt it getting some work and swetting, perhaps swelling a bit, but no pain or “level of use” response. Let’s see what happens..

I took it for about 4 days. I like that I only had to take one a day but I periodically check my weight and it was going up steadily for no reason. I wasn’t paying attention to my feet but when I looked I saw that I had lots of swelling in my surgery foot and some in my other foot as well. That either means I forgot my BP pills or something else is causing it. I had been taking my BP pills so meloxicam was the only new thing. I checked for side effects and swelling/weight gain is one possible side effect. About 16% of people in a study had this side effect. And, sure enough, swelling has gone down since I got off it.

And I was overdoing it because I had no pain feedback until I took all the weight off my foot - weird! I wrote about it in my previous blog post. So I would do LOTS of heel lifts and then get intense pain as soon as I took all the weight off my foot. By then it was too late - overdoing it had already happened. It took me a while to figure out this association though - LOL! - since it just a weird thing. My doc thought it was weird too and thought maybe the bursa was inflamed and causing the problem. A

If you don’t mind me asking, what was it that you were doing that caused the ‘over-doing’? Hey you are back on track now, and ball to recovery keeps rolling.

Interesting, I am taking Meloxicam for the past 6 days. I haven’t noticed any side effects, and also haven’t received any relief of my nerve pain from it.

How long did you take the meloxicam for?

I emailed my doc about the lack of pain until I take all weight off the foot and he thought the bursa might be inflamed. So I’ll take some anti-inflammatory meds for a while to see if that helps. I did notice today, as I did some weeding, that ANY concentrated pressure on my left foot leads to the same pain when I take all the pressure off. But, as I was weeding longer the foot seemed to get used to it and wasn’t giving me quite as much pain as I shifted my weight. Weird! Well hopefully time will make things more normal.

Gosh it has been a week since I fell . I did call the doc , both on vacay ….. assistant did page them but since i didn’t still have pain , they thought I was ok . We will see Friday at two weeks when I get stitches out and an X-ray and then hopefully can start some pwb . It has been a little tighter since mynother ankle was only at 22 weeks and not full strength and now has to take on full weight since I can’t use my other one .
Chris : the only thing I can’t do is go on toes with my 22 week out surgery . He said it could take 12 months . My pt said that’s the hardest thing to do since it’s all Achilles’ tendon work . I practice by having half of my feet on stairs and other part half off and do raises ( with both feet of course ) . Right now I’m doing nothing - but being bored and trying to stay positive during this couch time !

I hope your recovery sets a record too June! Let me tell you it was awesome. I just kept making improvement and moving on to the next stage. Of course if it does and if you end up doing the left foot in the future - don’t be surprised if it heals a LOT slower!!! LOL! I know I’ve been frustrated and I’m just hoping the inflammation from that bit of bone was slowing things down. Hopefully I’ll make some good progress now. I’m about to do my PT exercises today and we’ll see how things feel after my appt yesterday.

Thank you for the suggestion of the HOKA shoes - I may just give those a try. For now I bought a pair at Costco that will get me through the walking phase.

Well, I guess you really lucked out with foot number one as far as the healing process goes. I’m secretly hoping that mine will set a record for healing since it’s my right dominate foot!

My PT guy has me doing heel lifts, assisted of coarse at this point. But man, after a session of those I am sore! I’m always fine the next day but they take their toll on my little achilles. But I guess that’s how progress and strength are made.

If you’re looking for a good rigid shoe look at the HOKA running shoes. Lot’s of cushioning but rigid as crap. They’re designed for foot stability. I think I got the Arahi 2 model. The drawback is that they’re a little pricey. $130! But at this point I feel like my feet deserve the best after all I’ve put them through.

I used the silicone gel religiously as well June. It will work but it can take a while. I didn’t even notice you can barely see the scar near my bump. It is more visible on the out part of my heel/ankle area. But I’m still putting silicon gel on it just to make sure it stays nice and flat. Funny you see me making progress in PT and I feel like I’m at a road block. For my right foot I was starting to do jumps at this point! LOL! I’m not even running yet with my left foot.

But today I FINALLY saw some measurable improvement in strength. They have a machine at the gym for calf strength that you push with your toes. Before Christmas I had to have my right foot help out in order to push it with my left at the lowest weight setting of 15 pounds. On the 26th I was able to do a couple of pushes with just the left foot. Today I was able to do all the pushes with just the left foot. I had to take some breaks as I did 3 sets of 15 and sometimes had to move the foot up on the pedal so it was more than just the toe pushing but I was happy that the left foot could finally do that unassisted! I still can’t do a heel raise unassi

Good luck at your appointment. Glad you got that bump sorted out, crazy that it was a small piece of bone. Sounds like you’re making great progress at PT though. And I must say, I’m jealous of your absolute lack of scarring on your heel. It’s almost like you didn’t have any surgery whatsoever. I’m religiously putting silicone gel on my scar every day in the hopes that I will reduce it some.