Nov 21 2013
Ok, so clarification on what was going on with the calf… Only the medial head of my gastroc muscle isn’t firing / re-gaining any girth… The other side is there and in pain from overuse. Visit to ortho confirms this and he agrees with PT that it is very strange and haven’t seen it before. Still on PT program to rectify and will post progress in a couple of months.
Nov 08 2013
Haven’t posted anything here in well over a year. Felt like I was on the road to full recovery: mountain biking over 40 miles, alot of back-country skiing/hiking, stand-up paddling, surfing, and working with not too much discomfort - though never got the one-foot calf raise dialed. Then, about 6 months ago, things seemed to start getting worse, most notably on long walks or hikes. More recently all walking is uncomfortable and running is painful - and my calf has never developed on the medial side. I decided to go back to PT and see what was up… no calf and very difficult to make it fire at all - he was as baffled as I was.
I decided to do some research on this site and found a couple of stories of healing with an elongated achilles (notably "tomtom"’s story). This sounds like me: My calf hasn’t come back at all, but I don’t feel like I have and real difference in ankle ROM from the good side… I’m also getting pain and soreness on the lateral side just below the knee - this, I think, is because the smaller muscles there are doing all the work.
For now, back on a regimented and (hopefully) correctly-directed program to see if I can get the calf to wake up & at least make that part of the leg sore… because walking, jogging, biking, surfing SUP, and snowboarding are not doing it… I cannot fathom going under the knife again… don’t even want to visit an ortho surgeon - but that seems to be next on the list. I’ll post more once i get either results or more information.