frankd’s AchillesBlog

Many thanks to normofthenorth, stuart and terencemc for your comments - very insightful.

Because my orhto is out of the country and I don’t see him until April 9th (7 weeks post op), I can’t challenge his timeline. My biggest concern is that over these 7 weeks, scar tissue is building up and will permanently & adversely effect my ROM, strength, flexibility etc.

I do get out of the cast Thursday, 3/27 and into a custom molded brace. I’ll at least be able to see my foot and perhaps begin some gentle movements.

I would like to post a pic of this custom brace but have no idea how to do it on this forum.

Thanks again for your input,

Sincerely yours in recovery,

I’ll be in crutches and PWB at 6-7 weeks post-op (all but two of those in a boot and not cast). at that point, it’ll be moving toward losing the crutches and learning to walk. All in all, I’ve valued everyone’s insights here tremendously, but this is a most individual thing, I’ve found. It’s good to push the docs/PTs with the info you’re getting, but ultimately, they know your deal best. Happy Healing!

I would not go as far as saying 5 weeks in a cast is too long but many of us have been full weight bearing in a boot by that time and wearing shoes at week 7 or 8. I do agree with Norm that another 6 or 7 weeks NWB in a boot would not be helping you. Very much old school medicine. Some surgeons thing that once you get past that magic 12 week mark without a rerupture then they have a good result and many of them feel they have to lock us patient’s up until then so their good work does not get undone by our stupidity. Their good result is actually a little different to yours. The world is much more enlightened these days and we can actually question the most reverend doctors. They don’t like it very much but you are the consumer. I did have a friend though who had a surgical repair and decided to go surfing before he should. Snap and back to the start. You still need to be careful but you can increment your rehab and be doing most things much sooner. I didn’t see my doc after week 5 and it was left up to the PT from there.

Probably much longer than you’ll need — and the 35 days in the cast is, too. Check out bit.ly/UWOProtocol for one of the most successful rehab schedules that’s been published. And ‘hillie’ just posted a link to the spot on the ’suddsy’ blog where the similar — and wildly successful — Exeter schedule is posted.

If you’d skipped the surgery, that slow schedule would have significantly worsened your risk profile; but post-op patients don’t seem to suffer nearly as much from sub-optimal (or “nuisance slow”) schedules.

Still, there are NO studies that show any BENEFIT from going anywhere near that slowly, so your professionals don’t seem to be keeping up with their reading.

BTW, if you can install the ATR Timeline Widget (instructions on the Main Page), it will let us all answer our FAQs about your situation — including automatically calculating your timelines.