Nightmare scenario 10-wks post op
Update below
So everything was going great with the recovery thru 10 weeks post op. I was doing 2-legged calf raises in PT, balancing on the injured foot for over a minute, and had almost normal ROM. I was mostly out of the vacocast around the house and made an excursion out of the house in 2 shoes last Monday.
This past Thursday I went camping with the family, and feeling confident, I was out of my boot setting up camp and around the site. Then I tripped over the gyline on the tent in the dark. Stupid, I know. I went down hard and felt a lot of pain in the ankle and calf. I jumped up quickly and did my best to walk it off. It’s hard to remember; but it didn’t feel like it did when I ruptured. Still felt horrible. You can all imagine the anguish I am experiencing.
My Achilles is still functioning. I can flex my calf and plantar flexing is good. I can do seated calf raises and the calf is engaged. Dorseflexion is decreased significantly. Swelling is minimal (no more than it has been the past couple of weeks), and there is no bruising. I think I can feel a gap, but I don’t know if that has been there this whole time. When I was in to see the OS 2 weeks ago I asked him where the rupture occurred and he could feel where it was by palpating it. Hopefully I am feeling the same thing he did. There is a lot more pain and soreness in the tendon. What’s also new is the pain and soreness in the calf.
I’ve got an appointment with the OS on Monday. Thoughts swing from optimism to despair…..
Update -
I had a visit with my OS 4 days after my accident. He felt some weakness in the tendon and ordered an MRI, which I had later that week. Went in to get MRI results (now about 11 days after reinjury), and it showed a rerupture. He seemed to think that it wasn’t at the original site, but I’m not so sure about that. However, he said that functionally it looked “pretty good”. Function and MRI weren’t jiving. Basically, he wasn’t sure what was going on with it. The options were to do an exploratory surgery to see how it looked and to fix it if there was a clear rupture, or to wait few weeks to see if I can strengthen it. He said that it wouldn’t make a difference if we did surgery that day or waited a month, so why not give it a chance. I asked about going back in the boot, but he said, “we’ve done that already. Let’s continue with therapy where you left off and see if it gets stronger. If it doesn’t, then we may have to go in there and do something.” It wasn’t very reassuring that he didn’t have a more definitive answer for me, but I’m glad that he wants to give time and PT a chance.
So I’ve been back in PT for 2 weeks, and it’s feeling better. I’m a little bit beyond where I was before the notorious camping “trip”, mostly in ROM and balancing. I’m at 13 weeks post-op on the calendar, but with the set back, i’d put myself at about 10-11 weeks in reality. Therapist had me try one legged eccentric lowering today, which i wasn’t even close to achieving. Sticking with 2-legged standing, and one-legged sitting raises with weights. Concentrating on losing the limp when I walk.
When were other people able to do single-leg eccentric lowering? Should I expect to be able to do that at 15-16 weeks following the UWO protocol? Everyone’s recover is different, but I want to know what the range of this expectation is.
Continued thanks for everyone’s input
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Outlaw, sorry to hear of your fall. A good clinician can tell a lot from an exam and I’m hoping you get good news. I had two similar scares and one was a sprained ankle and one was a slight tear…but not at the graft site. It has healed on its own and only slowed down my timeline by a few weeks.
If your OS feels anything funky, he or she will likely ask for an MRI, which is what my OS did (and what identified the slight second tear). My second injury happened about six weeks ago and it’s now a total afterthought. Someone wrote that scares are a part of the recovery for many of us…hoping that’s all you have.
I am at 22 weeks now and the amount of activity I’m doing has ramped significantly in the last few weeks. Good luck and I hope you get good news!
Thanks cpo. Sorry to hear about your setbacks too, but I’m glad they weren’t major. This is just killing me because everything was going so well up until that split second. I can handle having to rewind the rehab a few weeks, but starting over is unimaginable. I’m growing more confident that I didn’t do serious damage, but the new pain is a sign that something isn’t exactly right. Trying to stay positive, and your comments really helped.
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Hoping you get good news on Monday! Fingers crossed for you, and sorry that you have had the long wait.
Outlaw I am so sorry to hear this. Hope you are okay - did you try a Thompson Test at home? My wife is an expert at administering it now.
Best of luck!
Hope you received good news. Speedy recovery!
You asked: “When were other people able to do single-leg eccentric lowering?”
Heel raises and drops, commonly known as “calf raises” are exercises that progress from sitting - double leg- heel -raises and progress over time to single leg, unassisted, calf raises.
There is great research about the 12 week eccentric heel drop program and I highly recommend it.
I could do double leg, going up on both legs but come down (eccentrically) on the injured leg at 16 or 17 weeks or so.
At around 20 weeks or so I could do assisted single leg calf raises and then a month or so later without assistance.
It is different for everyone, I’d say the average from reading blogs is 5 months and some NEVER do one. You can put “single leg calf raises” in the search box, top right of main page and read up on it yourself.
There are many variables, but I’d say primarily calf strength and tendon length.
Hope this helps.
I personally don’t think it’s a good goal and causes some people to do it too early. I didn’t care about it, just one day I found I could do them no problem…again I think it was about 6 months or so.