Odd sensations… 24 weeks after Surgery

Posted on March 28th, 2015 by JumpmanRugs

First off I would like to apologise for not posting more regularly here, it has been HECTIC since I ruptured my achilles, which is odd, I know! Get injured, lift gets busier lol.

Ok, so I have had a weird tingling sensation in my Achilles, and when I say a tingling I don’t mean anything drastic. It has been great up until this point, I have set an all time deadlift PR, back joining in with drills and taking a little bit of contact at practice (4 weeks sooner than I should have been) and squatting heavy again, with weighted calf press work.

I took this past week off to go and visit family and had a strange sensation in my achilles. It was almost like the nerves were fusing together, that is the best way to explain it. Another way would be that I am much more aware of the the fact I had the injury this past week, and I haven’t had that really for a while.

I was just wondering if anybody else has had such a feeling so late in their recovery? I know I am ahead of schedule with things, and I haven’t had any setbacks or let up on the recovery thus far.

My theory was that it was finally getting a much needed rest, but I wasn’t sure..

DOes anybody else have any theories? I would really appreciate it if you would give some insight! :)

Thanks everybody and I promise to check back in more often now I’m in control again lol

Regards

Pete

3 Comments »

Jogging faster than expected!

Posted on January 26th, 2015 by JumpmanRugs

So I spoke to my Physio about a week ago now, and asked when I’d be allowed to run. She says as my calf strengthens I will be able to run / jog again when the power comes back. Her advice was to jog for 30 seconds, and see how I get on, but a slow jog.

I didn’t do that. I jogged for 3.5 minutes the first time, and upped it 40 seconds every time thereafter. I went from 30 on, 30 off to 40 on, 20 off and now 60 on, 20 off, and then this morning I got up to level 12 on the treadmill which is kind of a faster jog / slow run and felt great. Of course I can feel that the Tendon has been working this morning, and can feel it now but I am feeling great. I haven’t been doing my stretches and strengthening as often as one would like, but at the same time I have been walking a good few miles every single day so it is getting worked. You may think it is stupid for me to not listen, but I know my body and I know what I can do. I told her from the start I was going to go off of instinct, and I plan to! My jog still looks a bit tentative, but I am confident in it at the same time! Footage to follow, but I am impressed and proud of myself for pushing!

I am back to physio stretches and strengthening now, twice a day. I want stronger calves so I can come back quicker. As stated in my previous blog post, they have given me the prediction of 6 months total from the date of surgery, which is 2.5 months away now and I’m determined to make it, at the latest I want to be playing again by the end of April, and I damn sure will be!

I am trying to update as often as I can, but work is very busy and so is training right now. The great thing is that I’m in what I feel to be the best shape of my life right now, just have to get back in to game shape when I can run again! I will be uploading my latest video very soon with me jogging.

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6 Months?!

Posted on January 6th, 2015 by JumpmanRugs

So I went to physio on New Years Eve and she said I was doing really well, recovery is coming along great and I’m ahead of schedule (WAHOO! - I’ve worked hard for that!).

I have been given some more difficult balance exercises as well as some movement based strengthening and swimming pool / hydrotherapy work now, but not to make them easier, she wants me to use it as stronger resistance to make it harder, which is cool!

She said she had spoken to my consultant to check what procedures they were to follow, and all they said is I wasn’t allowed to play competitive basketball for 6 months (At this point, my heart sank and I blerted out ‘WHAT?! NO!’) but she said ‘Don’t worry, 6 months from the date of surgery’ - Which means that as of tomorrow (Wednesday 7th January 2014) I am half way through my recovery process!

I have been cleared to use all cardio equipment except the rowing machine in case I jolt myself, she said I could but I said I didn’t want to risk it and also only walking on the treadmill. I did 20k on the exercise bike and walked 3 miles yesterday, and as well as 20 mins high intensity plus 6 miles walking on Sunday (day before) and feel great! So happy with it and how it is coming. Despite being told not to I tried a tiny jog / run while I was out walking and managed it twice for about 15 metres (small steps too) so that’s progression at least!

It seems really fast to me (I’m not questioning it) but everybody I have spoken to with the injury (athletes) and from all my research, most people have been 8-9 months. Do you guys have any input here? Has anybody had a quick recovery?

I am putting it down to pushing harder than being told to (But still being sensible) and staying 100% positive the entire time!

PEEEAACCEEEE

6 Comments »

2.5 weeks in to Physio!

Posted on December 13th, 2014 by JumpmanRugs

What’s crackalackin’ folks?! I hope you are all well and preparing for the festivities with your loved ones (I know I am!)!

Just a quick update, as I’m sure you are aware I haven’t posted on here for a few weeks and that is because I have been training a lot (Gym work) as well as trying to juggle 12 hour shifts at work (Not by choice!)

I am currently 2.5 weeks in to Physio, originally she wasn’t pleased with how I was working because the hospital told me to take the boot off, but not to use crutches and I had essentially messed up my motor patterns for walking, so was taught how to do it again. I was given stretches for those 2 weeks and feel great doing them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVqQ6-7mzxU

I have now progressed on to strengthening the calf as well as the stretches (All of this is documented on my youtube by the way, if you want to see; www.youtube.com/JRKDMG - Shameless plug alert!) and will be documenting that also. I have however pulled my right calf near the top of it in my physio sessions so will be doing more one sided weight bearing from the get go as opposed to both legs as instructed, but will of course be sensible with it.

I have finally got back in the gym to get my tree trunks back instead of these chicken legs (So gutted, they were favourite body part of mine!) and LOVED it, had no pain at all and was very selective with what I chose. Right now I will be doing the same leg session probably twice a week, and it only consists of 3 exercises - Quads, Hamstrings and Glutes and obviously my calves will be hit via my physio work until they are at a point I can do that.

You can see that here in a couple days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACLkd_QM-Kw

I tried a body-weight squat a couple days ago, NAILED IT! I just had this instinctive feeling I could do it, so I did it. This is a big thing for me in this rehab, is going off of instinct and not just what I am told, as nobody’s body is the same!

Anyway, that’s me for now and I hope you are all well (As well as you can be) and I will respond to comments on my previous post tomorrow, in a rush!

Stay positive guys!

Peace!

4 Comments »

My rupture story!

Posted on November 26th, 2014 by JumpmanRugs

What’s up everybody!?

My name is JumpmanRugs, I’m 23 years old and I recently underwent a full repair on my Ruptured Achilles!

It happened 7 weeks ago yesterday (7th October) while playing Basketball. I have played basketball every day for the last 5 years and on my way to getting my first professional contract, I had a trial for the professional team on my birthday in August. Unfortunately I didn’t make it, but I am playing for the next level down with the same organisation. This is the top amateur league in my country.

I moved up 4 days prior to the injury, and was really excited for the new season. I had been training beyond hard, pushing my limits and getting ready for the season. I turned up to my first training session eager to get play, and was doing well, and was told by my coach I could expect big minutes. I was out running everybody in punishments despite being not in game shape. I wasn’t quite in game shape as I had missed their pre-season training and we all know it’s a different level of fitness than one you can be ready for yourself. I had been working out every day, twice a day for a year on my skill work and strength training the year running up to it (Where we were there wasn’t a decent team close, so I didn’t play and just got myself ready to break on to the pro level).

It was a routine shooting drill, I took off as I always have for a jumpshot and felt something go as I springed off the floor. I thought somebody had caught their toe on my heel, or like I had been kicked in the calf as everybody seems to experience. One of the guys said they heard it pop, and I knew right away what I had done. There was no achilles there anymore, it was just jelly. My calf had also moved up a few inches, so it was pretty obvious what had happened.

I got myself out of training and just told people not to worry, I’d be fine. Obviously I wouldn’t lol!

I walked down to the train station (5 minutes walk) then ended up having delayed trains all night at the city centre station so was stood for 3 hours waiting and wandering around, then I got to another station and waited another hour, and then after that got to my final station and walked about 20 minutes to the hospital. I had my injury at 830 on the Tuesday night, and got myself to A & E at about 1am, was seen by 2am and home at 445am. I had a call at 730 the next morning (or a few hours later) and was told I was booked in for Surgery that day. I got to the hospital at 10am, went in for Surgery and came out again the same day.

I was back in the gym lifting weights (upper body - I’m not doing anything lower body until physio says I can) 2 days later while on crutches and in a 45 degree angled cast. After 2 weeks in that I went in to my aircast boot, which took a day to get used to before I could put my full weight on it.

I’m excited to start the next step in my recovery. My physiotherapy actually starts in 2 days. The doctors said I am ahead of schedule by a couple of weeks and 2 days ago (24th November), after 7 weeks, I was given the all clear to get back in to shoes and walk. I am doing so, though I may wear my boot to walk to the gym tomorrow morning as it’s uphill, just until it has loosened up a bit. My achilles is very tight but I just assume that is the stitching and the wound healing, plus the fact it hasn’t been stretched! We will see what Physio says on Friday but I will update you guys for sure.

If any of you are interested, I am documenting my journey completely uncensored on YouTube (www.youtube.com/JRKDMG) as I struggled to find readily available information from a regular member of the public (Not pro athletes with millions of ££/$$) in how they dealt with it and what comes with it.

I have not had one negative day yet, and I am putting that as a huge part of my speedy recovery, too many people get down when there is nothing you can do about it! Stay positive, and come back better than ever!! Of course I miss basketball, but I must just enjoy the process and make the most of it! :)

I hope all of you are well and are recovering fast, this is such a great idea for sharing stories, I wish I had found it when I first had the injury.

9 Comments »

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  • donna | April 15th, 2015 | 1:58 pm

    Andrew it’s hard to tell you exactly what is going on, “sharp pain” feeling means different things to different people…so I’ll preface this by saying you should see your doc if you are concerned… If rest helped that tells you that you were doing too much….I get two types of pain…what I call “at the repair site pain” which is along the tendon, not sharp at all but more throbbing, a feeling of tenderness and it lasts all day sometimes….I get what I call Zaps, which are sharp, intense, and don’t last but a few seconds, those are due to nerve endings….the bump may be fluid built up and trapped, sometimes lymph nodes can get blocked making pockets of fluid, I only know this because it happened to me and it was at the top of my incision, and now that bump, after a few months is going down as I swell less and less. I only swell now if I use the tendon too much. I don’t do any high impact moves to work out or rehab. I still swell but not much and not often…(22 weeks now). If you had not been swelling and now you are, again it may be due to the high impact running stress to the healing tendon or just too much activity overall.

    [...]
  • andrew | April 15th, 2015 | 6:48 am

    Hey going on 21 weeks post op. I believe it is part of the healing process. I was concerned about sharp pain few weeks ago that lasted for a couple weeks..I stopped going gym and just massaged and iced which stopped the sharp pain feeling. I think rest is critical to the healing process. I have been getting a lot of swelling and a little bump forming on bottom of my incision. I have been running 3X week and been running around on basketball court but not jumping yet. I don’t feel any pain but was curious as well if anybody is expreining more swelling than previous weeks

  • donna | March 28th, 2015 | 10:29 pm

    Well it’s hard to say what’s going on with someone else. I can say at 20 weeks on my off days from calf work (anything involving the tendon) I often get nerve tingles. Don’t know why it happens on off days, but it does. Like you nothing serious, you just know it’s there.

  • chuckp17 | February 9th, 2015 | 3:52 am

    Nice! I was playing golf at 8 weeks. Maybe not the smartest thing, but I went on total instinct, not just what I was told to do. I followed how things felt and stopped if I felt any pain.
    Always, always be careful where you step, but do a little pushing along the way and you will recover faster!

  • ctcbusted | January 31st, 2015 | 8:44 pm

    Wow! I can’t wait to join you on the treadmill.

  • JumpmanRugs | January 26th, 2015 | 3:25 pm

    How is 20 weeks? Are you almost fully healed?

    Thanks for sharing your story Derek! I have been pushing hard also, if I’m honest I haven’t had much down time at all because it drives me mad, i need to be locked away on days I don’t do anything, thankfully I am either walking or doing form shooting on those days so it’s active rest. How is it now? I’m excited to hear more!

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  • JumpmanRugs | January 26th, 2015 | 3:23 pm

    Hi Norm!

    Thankfully I haven’t hit any kind of plateau at all yet, because I keep pushing and pushing. I haven’t lost my nervousness, but have gained confidence in my Achilles. I don’t want to not do enough because I wasn’t confident, but don’t want to do too much because I got too excited, so am doing what my body feels!

    I will take a look, thank you! I am sorry you had to go trough that!

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  • JumpmanRugs | January 26th, 2015 | 3:22 pm

    I was asking if other people have had a recovery in 6 months and gone back to their normal activities, really.

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  • derek | January 7th, 2015 | 5:54 am

    I am at almost 20 weeks. I have experienced periods where I thought I was making fast progress, then it has felt incredibly slow making it to the next breakthrough. I am just now starting to do very light plyometric type exercises and that seems to have kicked me up to the next level. I’m running on a treadmill, doing dynamic lunges and one legged jumping and hopping exercises in PT, rock climbing, and hiking off trail. No running on pavement yet or any activities that would require jumping or landing in uncontrolled environments.

    I have been pushing pretty hard through most of my rehab. I try to keep a good balance between workouts and recovery. I have noticed that if I push too hard, the additional downtime required during the subsequent days was probably counter productive. I am now happy with being back to normal, less the running and jumping activities, and have been seeing steady progress for the past few weeks. At his point am I happy to take what recovery my body gives me and to avoid any time consuming setbacks.

  • normofthenorth | January 6th, 2015 | 7:55 pm

    I think the answer is Yes, that you’re ahead of the curve now. I don’t think that makes you immune to the “frustrating plateau” that usually starts soon, but you’re doing great, don’t stop! And don’t lose all of your nervousness and fear, either, because you can still suffer painful setbacks if you overdo. I outline a painful MONTH-long setback of my own on one of my blog pages - from following the advice of my sports-medicine-clinic PT, when I KNEW she was wrong!

  • donna | January 6th, 2015 | 6:22 pm

    I’m not sure what you’re asking with your question. Are you asking if you others could run at 12 weeks as you tried and were able to for a short distance? If not can you restate your question?

  • JumpmanRugs | December 15th, 2014 | 2:34 pm

    Donna, thank you so much for your kind words! You are awesome!! Happy Holidays to you too!! :)
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  • donna | December 14th, 2014 | 8:31 pm

    I enjoyed the You Tubes, especially being able to go back to where you were at the point I’m at now. Thanks! Happy Holidays.

  • JumpmanRugs | December 14th, 2014 | 11:31 am

    herewegoagain - You are awesome!! Thank you so much for your kind words!

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  • JumpmanRugs | December 14th, 2014 | 11:30 am

    My location is Scotland, and it’s flippin’ freezing haha!!

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  • JumpmanRugs | December 14th, 2014 | 11:29 am

    Gravity, that is so freaking awesome! Yeah it’s changed a lot since then haha, but at least the 90’s knew how to play hard basketball and not cry at fouls! Haha my surgeon actually made a comment like that and said ‘You don’t want to be a 40 year old guy trying to do things you could do when you were 20′. I disagree, I’ll still be aiming to school people at 40 haha!

    I hope you are in them, will check out your blog asap!!

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  • JumpmanRugs | December 14th, 2014 | 11:27 am

    Exactly what I thought when I got back in the gym NOTN! I did 10 sets of each and started off light, when I knew it wasn’t hurting I pushed a bit more. It’s still not maximum weights but it’s enough to make a difference and save me mentally! I make sure to stretch inbetween my sets as well so nothing gets tight (Tendon wise, I mean)

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  • normofthenorth | December 13th, 2014 | 11:37 pm

    Sounds great, but I’d concentrate on the exercises you can do a bunch of in a row. Lots of reps, low resistance. Strength and bulk will come.

  • gravity | December 3rd, 2014 | 10:35 pm

    Jumpman sorry for the late reply here, been busy… I played back in the late 90s in Finland, so looking at how the game has developed since, especially physically, I would have no business on the courts anymore :) And “for a living” in this context is what I considered a living back then, but it paid the bills… Funnily enough, I did my AT playing ball now, maybe it’s dangerous to play a game you once could actually play when you get older. My doc certainly had some pretty sarcastic comments about gents nearing 40 thinking they are 20, but it is what keeps him in business. Will update my own blog after the 6 week mark and fingers crossed will be able to talk about two shoes then…

  • normofthenorth | November 27th, 2014 | 6:10 pm

    Bending your knee is a Good Thing! Especially when boot walking. Your ankle is the only joint you should be nervous about.
    I see the ATR Timeline Widget now (& the NYC Marathon one), but it doesn’t list your location. That’s entered in a separate step, IIRC (it’s been a LONG time since I did mine!), then the info/data goes into the Widget.

  • herewegoagain | November 27th, 2014 | 4:44 pm

    I love your attitude and am sure that you will have a great recovery. Keep icing that ankle and it should east the ache!

  • JumpmanRugs | November 27th, 2014 | 8:29 am

    normofthemoon - Thank you so much! Yeah it’s really sore today, and I was walking in the boot too so it’s odd that it is. I think it’s from the last two days of not having it on. Feeling it in my knee where I’m scared to bend it though! Lots of screaming at Physio today! Haha, I’m in the UK, and I thought I had put the timeline widget on?! I’ll try again!

    gravity - Awesome! Where did you play?! How did you do yours this time? Thank you so much, i appreciate your kind words! Haha he certainly did, and I plan to come back with a chip on my shoulder just like my idol!

  • gravity | November 26th, 2014 | 5:51 pm

    As someone who once made a living on bball, I can imagine what a setback this feels like. I was lucky enough to escape any serious injury back then, now this is more of a hindrance rather than a threat to my livelihood. So great attitude, positive thinking can only help. And remember, Kobe seems to do ok after his ATR :)

  • normofthenorth | November 26th, 2014 | 2:38 pm

    Great attitude, love it! Might as well be positive - as my Dad would say, “for the same price”!
    Walking uphill is a MAJOR challenge in early 2 shoes, you’re right to use the boot for it.
    Good luck, keep posting!
    Where are you? ATR Timeline Widget will answer that and other FAQs.