jules’ AchillesBlog

Physio pulled me out the class and told me there’s no point coming to her any more. So that’s it at 17 weeks I’m on my own.

I was saddened to here sulthrnman  reruptured.  Reading  his posts from day one cant help thinking that the barnes and noble coffee shop overstretch of the tendon at 3 weeks non surgery  partly tore the healing tendon.

I’ll give a recap of my mixed up protocol as  it may help  and give hope to those behind me.

After surgery for some reason I was booked in early to see my ortho after 6 days. They took off the cast and examined the surgery site, it was decided that I had healed well enough to take the stitches out. It’s at this point my protocol got out of sink and helped me in the long term. My leg was recast for another 2 weeks in basically exactly the same position.

So I had my foot at the same angle for 3 weeks after surgery. I did move  my toes up and down in my cast constantly and as the swelling went down moved my ankle as if I was trying to get out of the cast.

I’m sure these 3 weeks gave me a really good base to heal the rupture site enough to then be much more aggressive and pain free later on.

My foot was moved and recast end of week 3 to around 30 degree plantar and again at the end of week 4 to end up at 10 degree planter FWB in a cast with a heel for weeks 5and 6

I think because of the early stitches out at week 1,my doctor didn’t want to stress the tendon after just 6 days so left my foot in exactly the same position for another 2 weeks.

Once I ditch the cast at week 6 it was into the vaco boot for 3 weeks, first few days  at 0 fixed then 0 - 5 degree planter, then 10 degrees planter to 5 degrees dorsiflex untlil week 9

Out of the boot it was 2 shoes with some 7mm foam insets in my trainers. I was active all the time throughout the the whole recovery.

From 2 shoes I went from strength to strength and was in the gym with a full leg program. By week 14 i entered the squash court again and started squash training. I’m trying to hold myself back from full power squash but my AT feels fine no pain at all and I forget I even ruptured.

A slight limp appears after a major work out but that’s just fatigue. Calf muscle is as defined as the other but 10% smaller and getter bigger all the time.

I’m really pleased with the speed of recovery and never doubted the return to normality but didn’t think it would be this quick.

Looking back I can’t help thinking that most people, especially if you are active to very active, and I include my self here, are in such a rush to get going in the early weeks that it’s detrimental to our healing.

I met an ex professional rugby player in a coffee shop when I was in a cast at around 3 weeks. He asked about my injury and then told me how his career was ended by a torn ACL. It wasn’t the injury directly that finished him rather that he pushed to fast and hard to get back on the pitch after reconstruction. He assured me that if he had taken it easy over the course of a year he have been fine but  he pushed too hard and although he did play for another 18 months his knee was too painful and he retired. I took this as a message and would like to pass it on again to those behind me. In the grand scheme of life 4 to 6 months is not a lot so take it easy on the road to recovery and if it hurts back off.

Wish everyone a strong recovery.

Jules

This entry was posted on July 12, 2011 at 12:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.