Hello from Suffolk

Posted on July 15th, 2010 by tatonka

Hiya,

Here’s my (tragic) story ;-)

All pretty standard fare from what I have read on this site, however here goes… I ruptured my achilles tendon one week ago today playing 5 aside football. I initially thought that I had been chopped down by the opposition but looking up from my crumpled heap I saw that there was no one was near me, I then looked for the hole that I must have fallen down - finally the popping sound made sense to me and the penny dropped. To be honest, it never actually hurt that much so I assumed that it was just a little tweak rather than something more serious.

When I got home my wife (after a bit of surfing) suggested that I should get it checked out properly, so she arranged sitters and took me to A&E. Not too bad an experience, they diagnosed a suspected rupture, fitted me with a temporary plaster cast, toes down, and sent me home. The following morning I was back up the hospital to see a specialist who confirmed the rupture, “agreed” a non surgical repair and had a permanent light weight cast fitted.

I am back up the hospital Friday week to have a boot fitted (I believe). In my notes it is called a Bohler Iron - any one heard of it? I am assuming that I will then be PWB?

P.s. crutches are rubbish!

5 Comments »

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  • normofthenorth | July 15th, 2010 | 11:48 pm

    Thanks, Simon.

    Whoever you see Friday week may be educable when confronted with evidence, so give it your best football effort! You may be resigned to going slowly, but think of the next class of “freshmen” (or whatever they’re called over there)!

  • tatonka | July 15th, 2010 | 1:43 pm

    Hi Norm,

    I’ll certainly be taking details of the protocol with me when I next attend the hospital however I’m not actually scheduled to see the specialist until mid September! I’ve got a feeling I will be fobbed off.

    To be honest it’s been a while since I last saw a bison in Suffolk ;-) but you’ve got to love Dances with Wolves (although I suspect my dancing days are over, at least for a good while). Feel free to call me Simon.

  • normofthenorth | July 15th, 2010 | 1:14 pm

    Getting PWB in your cast at 2 weeks would be good, but getting into a boot (and starting gentle mobilization and PT) would be much better, for your ankle and your life. Check out bit.ly/UWOProtocol for a good modern protocol that produced excellent (and identical) results with a large number of non-surgical and surgical patients. The study that used it is reference #7 in Wikipedia’s article on ATR, and refs 4-6 are to other studies that showed similar excellent results with similar fast (and boot-based) protocols.

    If you can educate your local professionals about the new evidence, you can help yourself and a future stream of ATR patients, too!

    If they’re planning to put you into a walking boot EVENTUALLY, then they’ll actually save money on casts by doing it sooner. Even if not, it’s probably not an extra expense to the system, though you may have trouble persuading the people who make the casts!

    (Tatonka as in Buffalo/Bison? Got many of those in Suffolk? Solve the riddle for us?)

  • tatonka | July 15th, 2010 | 11:11 am

    Hi jla2010, thanks for your reply.

    Blimey, that sounds a bit dickensian. Has anyone else had one of these things?

  • jla2010 | July 15th, 2010 | 10:03 am

    Hi tatonka, Sorry to hear about your injury. This is a great site with a very helpful support group community.

    I looked up the “Bohler Iron” and found a few articles on the Internet. It appears to be metal extension to a cast that allows you to walk as opposed to a walking boot. It’s been around since at least the 1930’s.

    Hope this helps.