Achilles Tendon Rupture Recovery

I am curious if anyone knows how bad/good coffee is for your body.

If diet had no consequences on my health, I’d get up in the morning, have an icecream bar, chocolate, and a large cup of coffee with lots of creme. And then I’d wash it all down with another large cup of coffee with lots of creme.

I’ve cut back on my coffee consumption, as I was having trouble sleeping.  I just don’t fall into deep sleep, although I have no problems sleeping 6-7 hours straight.

Also, does caffeine effect your tendon recovery?

I’ll do some research and post some info here as I find out more about coffee and caffeine.  Please feel free to comment here if you happen to know a lot about this and know of some interesting references on the web.

Update:
Here’s a good article form NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/health/05brod.html?em

So coffee isn’t bad for you after all. I drink 2 cups every day, with cream, no sugar, and no guilt!
I’ll use how well I sleep as an indicator to monitor my coffee consumption.

I am happy to say that my conditioning has improved, and I’ve been jogging periodically. It’s much better than the treadmill running.

This past Saturday, I drove into the city and went for a jog in Central Park. Now that I am living in NJ, I really miss running in the park. I used to live a couple of blocks from the park for several years, and I loved eating a small breakfast in the morning on a sunny Saturday, lace up my running shoes and go for a nice long jog around the park.

I wanted to run the full loop, which is little over 6 miles. My goal was to see how long I can run until my recovering leg started to complain. I ran about 5 miles, until my leg started to feel uncomfortable.
I could have pushed myself to run the last mile, but when I started to notice the soreness in my achilles, I knew that it was time to stop.

I also stopped a couple of times during the run. Once to ask why there were all these people lined up (Bon Jovi concert), another time to talk to a scalper to see how much he was selling the “free” tickets for. ($40) I went back to running.

I think 5 miles is more than what I have ran in quite some time. Even just before the injury, I wasn’t regularly running 5 miles, so I feel good that I am getting in a decent shape, and my leg is steadily improving. I have to say that I wasn’t breaking any world-records. I was running pretty slowly, but steadily. The speed will come with time.. or so I hope.
I now have a great deal more appreciation for my good health, and I am thankful that I am now able to do the things that I am now doing.

I do have some knee pain in the recovering leg, which I think is due to altered biomechanics of my gait. I am going to see a couple of podiatrists in a couple of weeks, so I hope to have some good orthotics to hopefully correct my gait.

My legs have been sore from Saturday’s run, but it’s been the good kind of sore. My achilles is holding up well, and I do have a slight limp sometimes, but I feel more comfortable bearing weight on it.

The recovery is really gradual at this stage.. Steady progress is the operative phrase for the moment.

For those of you following behind us, the old-timers, be patient and keep up the good spirits. It gets better. You’ll get there.

If you check the Marathon Tracker, you’ll now see at the bottom of the table, the averages for age, days to PWB, days to FWB, and days to 2-shoes for all the AchillesBloggers who have updated their Achilles Profile. Some warnings: these are just numbers from a small sample size. Everyone heals at different rates.. and you should follow your doctor’s recovery protocol, and not base your recovery protocol only on these numbers. At the moment, here are the averages. The numbers on the Marathon Tracker are updated dynamically, so it’ll change as more people update their Achilles Profile. Enjoy!

Average Age: 37.1
Average Time to PWB: 4 wks 1 day
Average Time to FWB: 6 wks
Average Time to 2-Shoes: 8 wks 1 day

After everyone’s feedback and many hours of hard work by my brother, here’s the finished version of the T-shirt design. I think he’s done a fantastic job, and I love the design. I hope you do too.

The design has been sent to the T-shirt print shop, and they are in the process of creating the proof and will have them to me by early next week. After that, it’ll take 2-3 weeks to have them available online for purchase. I didn’t realize it would be such a time consuming process, and I didn’t want to print the T-shirts from the instant digital printing sites as screen printing does offer better quality. This is a marathon in itself!

This is the small logo for the left chest:

To do this silhouette artwork, my little bro started with an image of a marathon winner finishing the London Marathon, and built on it.

Here is the larger design for the back:

[Update] The final design wasn’t final after all.  The back logo has been modified so that:

“#@! -> NWB -> PWB -> FWB -> 2-shoes (image of the stick figure running)” has been added instead of the large “AchillesBlog.com”.  We wanted to include the different stages of recovery, and we wanted to include our original stick figure logo in the design.   I think it’s an improvement, and I hope you think so as well.

Some more info about the T-shirts.  The company that is printing the T-shirts will also be doing the packaging and shipping, and they do deliver internationally. Once the T-shirts are printed and ready, they will be available to order from the website.

The transaction will be handled by a reputable T-shirt company, and they will package/ship them on AchillesBlog’s behalf. They do charge extra for packaging & handling per order, (not per T-shirt, which is good). I think it’s better to let the professionals do the fulfillment service. (As opposed to me trying to handle credit card transactions and running to the post office every day.)

It’s been nearly 5 months since my achilles surgery, and I am trotting along on this marathon of a recovery. According to the marathon tracker, I am still in Brooklyn around the Clinton Hill area. Still 7 miles to go until I cross the Queensboro Bridge into Mahattan.

Here’s what my legs look like now:

My calf muscle on my recovering leg seem to have regained most of its form. It’s still not as strong as my other leg, but it appears to be about the same size. When I flex my calf muscles and feel around them, my healthy side is still more defined, larger, and stronger. Strangely, you can’t tell from the picture above.

Here’s a little closer look at my heel. You can definitely tell that my recovering achilles is thicker, and my scars haven’t been healing as nicely as I would like. I haven’t been very good about using Mederma, and my scar hasn’t really improved since the last time I took the picture. (That reminds me, I am applying some Mederma on my scar now..

Here’s me doing the two-legged toe raise. You can really tell that my recovering achilles is thicker, and you can see that my healthy leg’s calf muscle is a bit more defined.

It’s a bit of a strain, but I can now do a few one-legged toe raise with my recovering foot. I feel like I am putting more stress on my achilles than I’d like, so I don’t do them regularly.

Improvement has been less noticeable the past couple of months, so it has been somewhat frustrating. I still feel this constant tightness around my heel, and it comes and goes. As I commute and do a lot of walking in the city, my legs get a steady “walk workout” just about every day.

It’s tougher in the mornings as my leg feels stiff, and I tend to limp a little more. Part of that is probably more mental than any inherent weakness in my achilles, but I can definitely feel the subtle stiffness/irritation when I walk. It’s probably the scar tissue, and it succeeds in holding me back from walking with a normal gait.

Not everything has been ho-hum, however. I’ve been going to the gym fairly regularly, and I ran on the treadmill again today. I started with a brisk walk until I was warmed up, and I ran at about 10 - 11 minute mile pace. Total, I walk/ran for 25 minutes, 2 miles.

I don’t think I could have done that comfortably a month ago.

So all in all, I am progressing fairly well with my recovery. I’ve been careful not to rush it, since I don’t feel like I need to be fully recovered by tomorrow. I’ve set my goal to be a conservative 1 year for full recovery, and I feel like am on track. I am jogging a couple of miles on the treadmill. I lift weights. I go to the basketball courts and shoot around. I don’t really jump when I shoot now. I probably get an inch off the ground, and my shot is still pretty good. I can’t believe how good it felt dribbling the basketball. It felt like.. aaaaHHHH.. dribbling between the legs, behind the back, a little in-out dribble, left-right.

I am left handed, so I am going to really improve on my right handed dribbling during this recovery time.

I now have this sharp pain in my knee (sometimes) when I put weight on it, so I am a little disturbed by this. The pain isn’t consistent, and it really catches me off-guard when it happens. A sharp-shooting pain that just comes and goes. I sometimes feel it when I am on the elliptical and I push down on the pedals in a certain way. I can’t really figure out what the problem is.

I guess my biomechanics has changed because of the injury, so I should go out and get some quality orthotics. (If anyone knows of a good place to go where they’ll analyze your walking form, etc.. in nyc area, please let me know. )

Well, if you’ve just started on this recovery process, just be patient and hang in there. It gets better.

I look back, and I remember the times that I spent in bed elevating my cast foot so that it doesn’t swell up. I remember spilling coffee everywhere trying to carry the mug while walking on crutches. It really would have been much, much more difficult going through this without everyone here who could relate to this injury and recovery. I don’t know what it would have been like going through this alone, and I am glad I don’t have to find out! So thank you!