On Saturday March 10th, 2018 I was playing soccer with my weekend warrior team and I completely ruptured my left achilles tendon in the last 5 minutes of the game. For a bit of background, I am 29 years old and in good physical shape. I’ve been playing soccer my entire life, including at the collegiate level, but in the last 3-4 years I have really slowed down and focused on work. Unfortunately, I think I jumped back into a competitive league too quickly and my body said, “Nope!”
As I started a sprint in the final minutes of the game, I heard a loud POP and it felt like someone kicked my ankle from behind. I tumbled to the ground, noticed no one was directly behind me, and I immediately realized what had happened. The pain was minimal at first. I was just very shocked and I kept saying, “well that’s it” and “that just happened,” and “there goes my achilles.” I was able to limp off the field without much help but noticed that I could not step forward on the ball of my foot. When I sat down and felt the back of my leg, my tendon was not ropelike and stiff like my right leg. Additionally, I felt like I had no control over the flexion of my foot. I could even see a slight gap in the tendon and a lump in my lower calf.
After the game, I drove myself to the Emergency Room near my house. As I drove for 45 minutes I eventually started to feel discomfort and slight pain (about a 5 out of 10), which was probably from sitting in the car. At the ER, it took about 3 hours before I was finally seen by a nurse who took my insurance information and I told her exactly what the problem was. “I felt my achilles tendon snap.” It’s pretty amusing saying this to people because their face usually cringes, and they become very sympathetic as though this is the worst injury in the world…which it very well may (I haven’t had many serious injuries, but this one sucks.) Finally, an actual doctor strolled in and had a look. After looking at it and I wiggled my toes, she doubted that it was a ruptured achilles. However, she did the Thompson test by squeezing the calf and immediately changed her mind saying, “Well, nevermind, its completely ruptured!” We talked about it for a few minutes and then she paged the Orthopaedic surgeon on call to set up an appointment as soon as possible.
I spent the rest of the weekend in a splint and told my boss the situation. My appointment on Monday morning was pretty straight forward and the Orthopaedic could feel the obvious gap in my tendon. After giving an X-ray and explaining my options, I decided on surgery in order to expedite the healing process and limit the risk of a re-rupture. Luckily, they were able to schedule me for surgery the next morning. My wife flew home from her parent’s house to help me, thankfully.
The surgery was pretty uneventful, from my perspective. The stuck me with a needle, cleaned my foot, put a few sticky things on my sides and back, talked about my medical history for a bit, and before I knew it I was being put to sleep in the operating room. The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room. No issues with the general anesthesia.
For the first 2-3 days post surgery, I slept a lot and took the pain medication even though I didn’t feel much pain. I was prescribed Naproxin and Hydrocodone from the ER, so the surgeon just recommend I keep taking those. After a while though, the hydrocodone was making me constipated so I discontinued that after about 4-5 days. Literally, the only post op instructions I was given was NWB and elevate your leg with ice. I’m like, “OK, well I guess I’ll figure everything out on my own.” Do I ice it through my splint? Do I elevate my foot laying on my back with all of the pressure directly on the achilles tendon? How do I know if something is wrong? How much pain should I expect? Can I wiggle my toes? I think you get the point…I was just very concerned with everything, and it didn’t help that I never spoke with the surgeon after the surgery.
After about 5 days, I started getting a severe burning sensation on the bottom of my heel. It was very painful, and sometimes I would wake up suddenly during the night and the pain would be unbearable for about 5 minutes, then disappear. After getting up and moving around on crutches it usually went away as well. The pain was not where I expected, since the achilles attaches to the heel bone at the back, not the bottom. I figured it was the splint, but after a couple days I called the orthopaedic office and the nurse said it is just my nerves coming back to life. Well, I really hope this doesn’t last long…
On day 9 after the surgery and I am feeling very tired of sitting around with my leg up. I can’t seem to find a position where my leg feels comfortable when resting on a pillow. After a couple minutes, the side of my leg gets tingly and there is a numbing sensation around the outside of my ankle. I have a feeling it might be the splint pinching a nerve or just putting too much pressure on the incision. Either way, I am very restless. I went for a drive to get lunch today, but that isn’t the easiest thing especially with crutches. I have a knee scooter to get around the house and the kitchen, so that definitely helps me move around more.
I am worried that the surgery didn’t work. I’ve been trying to be careful. I haven’t had too many slip ups, but I do find myself twitching frequently and sometimes flexing my foot as I move around in the bed, use the bathroom, or shower. I wonder if I should ask for an MRI or at least have the doc take a look to tell me everything is good to go.
TODAY was my first follow up appointment at 2 weeks post op, I finally talked to the surgeon and he put my mind at ease. He told me my achilles was looking good and the surgery went well. They put me in a hard cast for 4 weeks, NWB still. After that, I will be in a boot and begin putting a little weight on it progressively. I wasn’t expecting 4 more weeks of NWB, but oh well. I would rather be safe than sorry. My scar looks pretty awesome though…and my leg already looks a lot skinnier than usual.
Good luck to everyone. I’ll keep this blog updated as I go through the next few weeks.
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FYI - if you want to keep your boot from being scrungy - always wear socks - make sure the go up to the top of the boot too. 