Week 9 - Still Partial Weight Bearing

HELLO WORLD!!

I am happy to report that we are now about 1.5 weeks into partial weight bearing. My surgeon has been very cautious and conservative, despite the fact that we did surgery and he even augmented the repair with a xenograft (Stryker).

I am walking around with crutches, and have been slowly increasing the amount of weight that I bear, and can now bear about 50-60 lbs before my heel feels uncomfortable while standing. I’m 6′3″ and 180lbs, so that’s about 1/3rd my body weight. It’s not so much pain in the tendon or leg, but really just an uncomfortable feeling on the bottom of my heel. My guess is that this is related to the fact that I had gone 8 weeks+ without any weight on that foot.

Some days, my leg (including the tendon) feels sore. I’m assuming this is normal.

My biggest concern now is the progress towards full weight bearing… I’m approaching 10 weeks, and I know that many people are in shoes by this time. I am still wearing my boot all day, and even at night when I sleep (my choice). I have not yet started PT, and am hoping to do so next week.

So, here’s a general question… is two-three weeks of partial weight bearing normal?

2 Responses to “Week 9 - Still Partial Weight Bearing”

  1. If you look at the “marathon” page (http://achillesblog.com/atrpt.php), there are a number of people who took 3 weeks to go from PWB to FWB, and a couple that took 6 weeks. I was still wearing a boot 24 hours a day at 10 weeks as well. It seems like “normal” is elusive with ATR recovery - so much depends on the particular injury, the method of repair, and the doctor.

    Is your heel swollen? For a couple weeks I often had a weird feeling in the bottom of my heel when I would first put weight on it which was apparently from swelling. The feeling would go away after a few minutes.

  2. I know my doc had me transition slowly to FWB. I started the transition at week 6 and was FWB in shoes at week 10. My doc had me transition by wearing shoes (with heel lifts) 25% of the time for a week (all the rest of the time in the boot), then 50% of the time for 2 weeks, then 75% of the time in shoes and the rest in boot. At week 10 I was OK’d to be bootless and set up my PT appt.

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