Achilles Tendon Rupture Recovery

AchillesBlog NYC Marathon Widget is now available. You can see it in action on the left sidebar of my page.

It keeps track of your recovery progress starting from your surgery date to 365 days afterwards.
From that, it figures out where you are in your recovery in terms of the NYC mararathon.

(Update: You can set a recovery date of your choice. Just enter the mm/dd/yyyy in the settings. For example: 11/29/2008 )

It’s a nice graphical representation of your progress. Since many of the people recovering from ATR are athletes and some have ran several marathons, I thought this would be appropriate.

Why 365 days? My goal is to recover as close to 100% as I can AND be in excellent shape by the 1 year mark.

If you’d like to keep track of another date (being FWB, out of a boot, walking without a limp, days until your vacation) you can do that now with the new enhancements.
The next enhancement is to allow you to keep track of multiple dates with different colored circles or squares.

As always, I appreciate any feedback. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

Instructions

Please go to this URL for instructions on how to set it up:
Instructions on Setting Up Recovery Progress NYC Marathon Widget

If you need any help, please leave a comment on this page and I can set it up for you.
You’ll have to tell me where you want the widget to appear, whether you want a transparent water map or a regular map. And also whether you want a custom title.

Now that Achilles Blog is getting more and more visitors (which is a good thing), we’ve been a target of annoying comment spams.

I have added some anti-spam measures.. so if you are not logged in, and you want to leave a comment, you’ll have to first type the security word on the image that appears next to the comment box. I am sure you’ve seen this on other websites. I’ve picked out some “positive” words as security words. I believe that any bit of positive thinking helps.

Another milestone of sorts. I am officially out of the boot starting today! My ankle feels fairly good, and I’ve been walking around outside appreciating the newfound normalcy without the guilt of not following my doctor’s protocol. I have an obvious limp, and I am a bit hesitant to push off with my recovering foot. I made a half an attempt to push off with my foot, and my foot flatly refused. Stairs are still a problem as I am going down them sideways using the handrail.

It’s a strange feeling being officially out of the boot really. I feel like I’ve reached the top of a hill, only to find out there is another hill to climb. So my next milestone will be being able to walk without a limp. Again, I have to remind myself to be patient. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Since a year is 52 weeks, and I am at week 8, and a marathon is 26.2 miles.. then it means that I am at mile 4.

If this is the nyc marathon, I am still in Brooklyn.

Just wanted to share with you some numbers:

We had over a thousand unique people visiting everyone’s AchillesBlog for the month of March.
I don’t think every one of those people had an ATR, but say conservatively 1/10 of them did, then there are 100 people a month with ATR here.

If you are starting out on crutches, and did not get good instruction on how to walk with them,
this page shows you how to properly use the crutches (correct fit, going up/down stairs, etc.):
http://www.chw.edu.au/parents/factsheets/youcrutj.htm

I’ll also create a link on the main site.

I had my first physical therapy session yesterday. The physical therapist was excellent, as he really took the time and was very good to work with.

He mentioned that my ROM is very good, and that I was recovering very well. I asked him whether there are any chances of me stretching out my tendon, but he said that my ROM was just about in line with the other foot, so I shouldn’t worry about it.

I did admit to him that I had been cheating a little by going on short walks without the boot. He sort of laughed and said that the doctors usually pad their recovery schedule a little, but I should still be following the protocol.

My plan is to walk without the boot indoors if I can avoid stairs, and use the boot when I go outside.

The session started out with the ROM measurements on both feet, using a plastic tool.
Then heat was applied for 5-10 minutes.
Afterwards, there was the ultrasound treatment followed by a gentle massage around the tendon. The massage was slightly uncomfortable, but not painful.
He showed me several exercises to do at home and gave me a light resistance band to use during the exercises.
He also made a printout of the exercises, and I’ve scanned it and converted it to pdf, and
it’s now here: http://achillesblog.com/physical-therapy

They were the same exercises that Mitch’s PT had recommended.

The last part was of the treatment was icing the foot for 10 minutes. I think that was the most painful part of the PT session. It really burned, and I couldn’t take it for too long. I thought that the burning sensation would go away after a few minutes, but it never became numb and the pain persisted. The PT put a paper towel between my heel and the ice, and it was much better.

From the PT’s evaluation, it looks like there isn’t going to be much stretching involved in my treatment as my ROM is close to normal.
He is going to work on gradually strengthening of the muscles around the tendon and continue with the same treatment I had yesterday for the next several sessions.

I don’t know if it’s just the placebo effect, but my heel does seem better today. There is definitely less of the stiffness in the region around the achilles tendon.

I am looking forward to the next PT session, and I am glad that things are progressing nicely. My calf muscle is still very weak, so I am eager to build strength there. But that’ll have to wait as I can’t stress my achilles right now. No toe raises yet for me.