cserpent’s AchillesBlog

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.

Call the doc Sandy! Stuff happens no matter how careful we are. It’s better to get any problems fixed sooner rather than later.

I’ve missed you all ! 22 weeks out from first surgery - just had second surgery on other foot Thursday and I FELL this morning and used my surgery foot by accident to regain fall . I put massive pressure on my re attached AT foot , dang it ! I was being so careful . I opened up wrap and external stitches look ok . Iced and elevated . Can’t really tell if I messed it up . So mad at myself for falling ( using a scooter and lost balance in bathroom ) .
Round one was amazing , I was lucky ! I’m afraid to call the dr , but I figure I would be in serious pain if i did something bad to the surgery area .

Thanks Tima! Actually after my doc told me what he thought it was I picked at the top and kept squeezing it and saw a little hard piece and pulled that out. As I look at it under my jewelers magnifying lens it looks like a small piece of bone. I’m going to bring it to my appt to show the doc. So my guess is that a piece of the bone that came off as they ground down my bone spur during the surgery didn’t get washed away. I got it out a couple of days ago and, finally, today, the bump has reduced in size quite a bit. There is still a small knot there but it is much less sore. Now I’m hoping a lot of the pain I’ve been getting will be reduced as well. Hopefully there isn’t another piece of leftover bone in there poking at things!

So if I were you Chris I would tell the doc you want him/her to find out what the heck is causing the irritation!

I hope your appointment goes well and the left behind suture gets sorted out. Sweet that you’re walking in bare feet! I can’t wait to take a walk on the beach and feel the sand in between my toes again. (Though it’s been “cold” here lately!)

Keep up the PT work! I know what you mean about feeling like you’re not making progress. But we are, just slowly, and have to remain patient and celebrate the little wins!

Yes mine is near the bottom Chris. I’ll let you know when I go in on the 31st if he finds a suture in it I’ve picked at it a bit but all I do is get it bleeding. I didn’t find anything near the surface so he’ll have to dig a bit deeper than I did. I just sent pictures of mine to my doc and he instantly thought it was a leftover suture. He thought it was OK to wait until my original appt on 1/8 but offered an earlier one which I took. So it isn’t a big concern - it just annoys the heck out of me and I would like to get back to just the normal pain caused by my PT exercises. I know what the normal pain feels like since I went through this with my right foot and this isn’t the normal pain. If you’re at 22 weeks and it still hasn’t gone away I would be a bit more insistent about having him look at it a bit more closely. My bump has been there since the incision closed up. It sometimes gets a little smaller and hurts less but last night it was really bugging me which is why I finally emailed my doc. I’ll add a picture.

Hello Cserpent - I too have a lump/bump at the bottom of my incision. It’s actually kind of a knot about the same size as yours. I have discovered that if I’m going to have any pain or tenderness, it’s usually that specific point. I am at about 22 weeks post op, and the lump has been there for many of those weeks. My doctor thought that over time it would subside and slowly start to disappear, which it has a little. He felt that since it was down at the bottom of the incision it was normal and wasn’t concerned, although I was because it is the most sensitive area on the repair. I asked him if he thought it was a suture that may work its way to the surface of the skin, and he did not think that was the case. Is yours near the bottom of the incision?

Well I finally emailed my doc about a 1/4″ size bump along my incision area. It was the last area to heal and has had a hard knot that is often tender or sore. It was quite sore last night (and I was laying off PT exercises since my heel raise had annoyed things the night before) so I took pictures and emailed to him. He thinks there might be a suture that was missed and it is annoying things. I see him on the 8th but I want this resolved sooner so hopefully he can get me in on the 31st.

I was doing lunges at the gym tonight and felt a sharp pain and then things felt better. I think I must have broken some scar adhesion since my foot feels more flexible tonight than it has in a while. I can walk barefoot without a nagging pain on the side of my heel finally. I’ll know more tomorrow when I get up. If that is what happened then it is time to go walk on the beach or in a sand volleyball pit barefoot to see if any other scar adhesions are kinking up the works.

Thank you Dan! My PT guy wasn’t too concerned either. I’ll blame it on my doctor who told me I could start running at 3 months. I don’t even know if I’ll be running before I see him again in January. Ah well as I should know very well - it takes as long as it takes and you can’t rush it.

cserpent, sounds to me like you are progressing nicely. I’m at 15 weeks post injury (no surgery) and I don’t feel like I’m anywhere close to a single leg calf raise. Nobody on my team seems to be worried about that at all. Except me, maybe. Keep up the good work.

Thanks kamueller! I’m still babying it and not going barefoot right now since that really annoys it. I know everything will take time so I’ll just baby it, do some of the exercises from 2 PT sessions ago which are less strenuous and wait until I can walk without it being unhappy.

That stinks, cserpent! Hope it’s just temporary and will be fine in a few days.

Thank you June! Yes I was cruising along and stopped listening closely to my foot thinking I was doing just fine. LOL! And that’s when things bite you in the butt - hahahaha!

There is no saying you won’t be lightly jogging at 4 months June. We all heal at different rates. However when I become able to jog the doc said I can only do it for 10 minutes max initially. And remembering back to my right foot when I finally could run I would run for 30 sec to 1 min then had to walk and just kept alternating walking and jogging. Eventually I could jog for longer time frames - but you have to work up to it - as one would expect.

Ah well, that sucks. You seemed to be cruising right along with your recovery. I thought that running statement from the doc was a little premature as well, but what do I know. I actually got a little excited thinking “Ooh, maybe I can run again at 4 months!”. Silly me. I guess some setbacks are unavoidable in this marathon of recovery. Hang in there.

Thank you Dan! Yep I know I was not listening to what my foot was telling me soon enough. This AM I got in shoes the minute my foot started complaining a bit when I was barefoot and I did 7 heel raises - but went up on both toes rather than 1 legged - and stopped right when I felt a twinge. Wearing my clog “lifts” all last night helped so the foot is feeling better today. I’ll wear my clogs again this evening when I go to a birthday party and won’t spend too much time standing.

well, I’m sorry to hear that you have to slow things down for a bit, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I’ve been dancing right on the edge of what feels like plantar fasciitis trying to get a “foothold” (ha ha see what I did there?). It’s a tight rope we walk as we try to properly rehab, but not “overdo”. We’ll get there, though. Stay positive.

Thank you Tima! This week it feels like 2 steps back. Probably because hubby was out of town for a week so I was doing too much and not resting the foot and shoulder enough. Both are unhappy. I can’t do as many PT exercises for either, right now, without making both very unhappy. In fact my last lunges tonight were 1 lunge too many. The achilles is throbbing now. Ah well - that’s how things go sometimes. At least I can compare to my right foot to see if I’m progressing at the same pace as before or not. If I’m not doing a 1 footed heel raise standalone by mid-December then I’m behind where my right foot was. I may fall behind But my right foot is my dominant so it was probably stronger to begin with. I know I was exercising a LOT harder and for a lot longer before I had surgery on my right foot and I’m sure that has an impact on recovery. But I’ll just go with the flow. The foot will decide when I go on to the next step.

Sounds like you’re really making some progress, and congrats on no more heel lifts! Keep up the great work

Thank you June! And definitely every centimeter is progress!

Yay! No more heel lifts. And I agree…give me additional exercises, not fewer. Amazing how much those few centimeters mean to our progress. Keep up the great work.

Documenting my flexibility for my records:
at PT appt #2
right knee-to-wall: toes at 11.5cm
left knee-to-wall: toes at 8.5cm

now
right knee-to-wall: toes at 12cm
left knee-to-wall: toes at 9cm

Hi Bruiser - you’ll need to request that a blog get setup. On the main page, 3rd paragraph are the instructions about emailing.

And I’m happy that after 2 days of mostly resting my achilles I was able to go through my entire PT repertoire. I even looked at the exercises I did at this point for my right foot and added in some of those. My achilles is a little achy but not paining me like it did over the weekend.

Does anyone know how to make a blog post?

Documenting my flexibility for my records:
right knee-to-wall: toes at 11.5cm
left knee-to-wall: toes at 8.5cm

Thank you Jeff! I’m leaning on both arms on a counter right now - LOL! No way can I do this without putting some weight into my arms. I went through the same process with my right foot. Start out leaning on arms a lot, slowly move more upright with less weight on arms and eventually you can do it upright. It just takes time to build up the strength again. And now it’s time to do my PT exercises!