kezqb’s AchillesBlog

Well its now 12 days post second surgery.   Lets give a quick summary of my Achilles problems so far, all three ruptures!  My first rupture was on my right leg almost three years ago sustained playing badminton.  I opted for the repair plus the usual 7 weeks in 3 different casts, followed by physio.  After 6 months everything was fine, it has survived two snowboarding trips, soccer, badminton, cycling, running etc etc.

No problems until….playing soccer at the end of Nov 2010, bang my left Achilles goes pop.  This time it felt like a kick in the back of the leg.  I knew what had happened as soon as it went.  A friend took me to the hospital and 1 hour later I was in plaster, sent home and told to come back in the morning.  I promptly returned the next morning was admitted and had the repair in the afternoon.  Next day sent home.

Had the usual 3 casts over a 7 week period and finally got out of plaster 9th Jan.  Started physio and everything seemed fine.  I even managed 5 days easy skiiing, perhaps pushing my luck only 10 weeks after surgery but everything was fine.  Then on the 6th Feb, oh dear.  I was running late and was planning to go out for lunch with some friends.  I came down stairs, realised I had left my shoes upstairs, quickly turned put all my wait in my bad leg, pushed off and BANG.  Needless to say my next few words cannot be written here!!

It felt like a re-rupture but with all the scar tissue it was difficult to tell, so off to hospital I went.  They had a look and came to the same conclusion as me, probably re-ruptured.  So back into a plaster cast I went and was told to return on the 8th Feb.

I returned on the 8th and had to have an ultrasound scan to confirm that it was re-ruptured.  So then it was time to discuss the options.  The first consultant wasn’t sure so he called a colleague who at first recommended not to have surgery and just to follow a conservative treatment regime.  Then he said BUT, perhaps as the tendon had re-ruptured I may have poor blood supply so maybe surgery would be best.  He referred me on to another consultant who decided that a re-construction was the best course of action.

So I was admitted to hospital with the plan to operate the following day.  On the 9th I had the operation late in the day.  The consultant performed a reconstruction using other tendon tissue from my calf as a graft.  I was sent home on the 10th to start the long process of recovery.

I have my cast changed on Wed 23rd so will provide another update then.

Cheers

Keith