3 Degrees of Motion

I’m 3 months out from my injury and surgery, and have fully transitioned out of the boot into two shoes. That actually went pretty well. I got some running shoes (even though I don’t run) and wear them all day (even though my feet yearn to be free) to provide support to my bad leg. At the end of each day I’m a little sore and I swell up like a balloon, but I feel stable and can get around with no problems.

Today, I started physical therapy. It was just assessment of my current condition so the therapist can devise the right way to torture me next time. I could only flex my foot 3 degrees upward and 28 degrees downward, with targets of 15 and 50 respectively, so I have alot of work ahead. The good news is that I can balance on my bad foot for a full 30 seconds and my walking is relatively good. My homework is to extend my walking stride, use a giant rubber band as resistance to work my foot in each direction, and to balance with my bad foot on a foam pillow and move my good leg around like the positions on a clock. I’m pretty excited about the homework - it’s almost fun to do and I’m motivated to improve my range of motion and strength. I’ll probably do it more than the suggested 2 times a day as long as I don’t get too sore. I’ll have 18 P.T. sessions over the next 2-3 months - I’ll see how much I can improve in that time before I’m off on my own.

5 Responses to “3 Degrees of Motion”

  1. Good luck with the PT! I enjoyed it completely since I knew it would lead me to full recovery and back to my normal activities. Don’t overdo it. My PT would tell me - if it hurts don’t do it. You don’t want to overstress it things since the muscles/tendons have to build up strength and flexibility.

  2. So far, the only pain I’ve had at all has been a dull ache (2 out of 10) in my foot which the PT said is probably from swelling. It seems strange, but the Achilles itself and my calf have no pain at all - just tightness when I do range of motion exercises.

  3. At my PT appointment yesterday, I initially had 5 degrees of upward motion, but after the PT smooshed the swelling up my leg and manipulated my ankle I was up to 10 degrees of motion. He suggested getting an Achilles support sock to reduce the swelling - the swelling really doesn’t bother me much but it’s apparently impeding my rehabilitation progress..

  4. My doc told me the most important thing was to keep the swelling down. Mainly because you have little fat in your foot/ankle so the swelling pushes on important things rather than fat :) Since he explained why I was quite diligent about following the protocol that called for keeping my foot elevated 90% of the time the first 3 weeks. And after that if I noticed things swelling I elevated. I looked into compression socks but ended up not needing them so never got any. Many others on the blog found them very useful! They have some real colorful ones nowadays! Glad your PT was able to get more movement out of your foot!

  5. My PT recommended a special Achilles recovery sock for me. I tried it and it did a great job controlling the swelling around my ankle. Unfortunately, the end of my foot sticking out from the sock swelled up like a balloon. So yeah now I’m looking into compression socks.

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