luis’s AchillesBlog

Hi everyone,

Today I have been told by my PT that I do not need more PT, that I can do the rest of the recovery from home by stretching and continuing the exercises. She also said I could start doing some light training to play soccer again but to work incrementally towards it. I am really excited about it, I am also aware I do not want to risk it playing competitively yet (not even in a month from now), but I think I can do some pick up games where I just jog and pass the ball around for now.

I told my PT that I still need to recover a lot more ROM and coordination. My PT gave a soccer ball and ask me to dribble, I felt good but I could see how uncoordinated my injured leg has become, She said that our muscles forget how to do things after a while, and just practice will make them remember.

One funny thinks is that as much as I would like to play, It will probably have to be in two weeks from now, as I have finals at school next week!

I hope everyone is doing fine, I will post again after my first game in two weeks  hopefully.

Hi everyone,

Over this last week I have been experiencing some nice changes, a week ago I started doing unassisted heel raises, I can do 6, but I can only reach 20 degrees above the ground. I am getting there I think. Today I was able to run my first mile, I did it in 14 minutes, I guess you could call it jogging. One thing that I am still struggling with is my ROM, I hope this gets better. Other than that the achilles is healing pretty well, no more limpimg while walking, I can walk on my toes while carrying weights, I hope I can be back to light soccer by August.

Good luck to you all!

Hello to all the ATR community,

It has been 12 weeks since my surgery, as I mentioned on previous blogs, I did mine playing soccer on April 3 and underwent surgery 5 days latter.

Over this twelve weeks I have seen how things change so unexpectedly,  I see small progress everyday, but the big milestones come only twice a month, until they come I find encouragement on the everyday small progress. I have been in PT for about 4.5 weeks and although they have switched therapists 3 times already, and I am almost never in contact with them (only with their subordinates who tell me what to do by reading some kind of instruction manual) I have come to make the best of this situation, because I have been able to do 30 reps when whey have asked  for 20 only (since no one is paying attention). This way I am usually able to stretch my visit to 75 minutes.

Things have been going great, except for a small tendon twist (on one of the tendons next to the Achilles) during PT, which kept me one week away from doing heel raises. Two weeks ago I started doing my first assisted one leg toe raise. I have also been hitting my school gym really hard for the last three weeks and I have been able to drop 4 pounds of the 10 I put on. They have some really nice helliptycal machines that feel really good on my tendon.

My third Doctor visit was two days go, it lasted 5 minutes, I laid on my stomach and the Dr. grabbed and moved the tendon, while asking me if I feel any pain. He ordered six more weeks of PT and wants me to see him again after that. I did not asked him what new things I could do, because I knew He would say “Nothing.” I do not mind that, I am doing my on protocol.

My goals for the next weeks are:

-Although I can jog, I want be able to do it with out being afraid.

-Recover my aerobic conditions fully in six weeks, so that when my achilles is fully  recovered I am ready to play competitively again. My anaerobic condition is going  to take longer so I do not even think about it yet.

-Play soccer at 16 weeks, I probably will not be able to sprint yet but I want to be  able to distribute the ball and move around. To do that I have to work a lot on  stretching my tendon.

Thanks everyone for posting, I always find stories that keep me up when I become lazy about recovery. I hope you all are healing well!