New Achilles blog- Dana O’s Story

Hello All!
This will be my first blog post ever, so bear with me!

A little background about my journey:
At the beginning of December 2012, I decided I was sick of being obese and was going to change my lifestyle. I started eating healthy, cutting out fast food, fried foods, and pizza. I also started walking with every intention of working myself up to being a runner. Everything was going great I was losing weight and exercising- it was awesome. In January I started running and was LOVING IT!!

Then, in the middle of January, I woke up and my ankle felt really tight. I decided I was just sore from my run the day before. So this Friday I happened to be off of work and I was going to do 2 workouts that day. I started with a walk around the neighborhood, about 3 miles. My ankle still felt really tight but I muscled through. Later that Friday, I did my Jillian Michaels “Ripped in 30″ DVD. Great idea! Not.

By that night I could barely walk; I hurt so bad! It was just a crazy tight feeling, as if my tendon could pop at any moment. By Monday, I called an orthopedic surgeon that specialized in foot and ankle issues. The next day I was diagnosed with non insertional Achilles tendinitis. The doctor put me in a walking boot for one month.

I went back to the doctor and I had gotten worse. Not only did I have the non insertional Achilles tendinosis, but I also had plantar fasciitis. I was ordered to do 6 weeks if physical therapy. At first it worked great, but the last two weeks of it, I could barely do the exercises.
*side note: I manage a beauty supply that is in a warehouse, so my job involves a TON of walking.
Anyway, the doctor put me in 2 more weeks of PT and ordered an MRI. The first MRI they found a “mass” in my foot, I was so worried that is was something extremely serious. After a second MRI (contrast MRI where they inject dye into your veins through an IV) which showed there was actually no mass, just tortuous veins.

When I went back to have that MRI read by my doctor, he told me that usually they wait 6 months before discussing surgery, but we had exhausted our options. Surgery was last Monday on April 22, 2013.

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