15 days Post-Op
Hi!
This is my first post on the Achilles Blog! I thought I’d also share my stories, like many of you did. I find your stories and experiences very helpful and definitely play a part in my recovery.
How it happened
I first “ruptured” my Achilles tendon April 16, 2014 playing badminton on my right leg. (More than a month before my surgery!) I felt a “pop” and then came the pain. Though I could still limp/walk, I went back to play a bit after a few minutes of rest. Got home and RICE it. The next day, I went to a clinic and got a doctor to look at the ankle (I don’t have a family doctor). He said it was just a sprain, 2 weeks and it’ll be back to normal. 2 weeks past, my calf was really killing me and I was still limping so I went to a different doctor at different clinic, same diagnostic. He said 2 more weeks and it’ll be fine.
4 weeks past by, I was still limping. I noticed that I couldn’t do a toe raise on my right leg, so I went to see a different doctor. I told him about what happened, and said that I couldn’t do a toe raise, he was surprised. He did a calf squeeze test on me, no tendon. He immediately referred me to an Orthopaedic surgeon and said that the first two doctors should have done a calf squeeze! I was in tears at this point, I LOVE sports, especially tennis and badminton. I walk to work everyday, I walk everywhere! I was also in tears because he said I will absolutely be needing surgery as he described my injury as “Chronic Achilles Tendon Rupture” because it has been left for so long. I was devastated and scared. I never had any kind of surgery before in my life, this was definitely heartbreaking.
Day of Surgery
On the day of the surgery, I was scared and didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t meet my surgeon until a few minutes before the surgery. They decided to not put me under general anaesthesia, and went with a leg freeze instead. I’m glad they went with this option, I was awake the entire time could feel them pulling my tendon together. Luckily, no muscle graft needed! My surgeon came highly recommended, specializes in foot and ankle, the surgery went well.
Post-op (The first 2 weeks)
It has been an emotional train wreck since the surgery up until this point. The pain, anxiety and stress. My freeze block didn’t last as long as I hoped (it disappeared after a few hours), I took Oxycodone as prescribed for only a few days, then went on to Extra Strength Tylenol. I cried, cried and cried. I had a few slips and accidentally put weight on my foot, I cried like a baby thinking I had re-ruptured it. Yesterday I went to an emergency room because I slipped and thought I re-ruptured it, but it turned out to be not as bad as I thought. The doctor (not an orthopaedic doctor) took an x-ray and said the tendon “felt” intact. Wound is healing perfectly. I’m quite lucky that I can somewhat work from home on the laptop, this keeps my mind of the pain. The key is definitely rest and healthy eating.
2 more sleeps until my first post-op follow up with my surgeon. Can’t wait to get out of this splint. Hopefully I didn’t re-ruptured it. The pain is still there, but from reading other people’s stories, seems like it’s going to be there for a long time.
I’m happy to answer any questions!
I owe it to my family and friends who continue to support me during my recovery! Happy healing!
Twinklebell
July 2nd, 2014 at 2:51 am
Your third Doc is only a bit behind the latest research - mostly the shocking new (2012?) study by Wallace in Belfast. Summary and link at /Cecilia/protocols. In addition to getting wonderful results with 945 acute ATRs treated non-op, Wallace got great results with his group’s reruptures (~2.8% of the total, IIRC), AND with the majority of the chronic, “stale” ATRs - like yours - that he saw. Until that study, we all thought that treating stale ATRs non-op just wouldn’t work. Wallace’s innovation is simple and “obvious”, in hindsight: he used his eyes and hands to check whether, and how (at what PF angle) the torn AT ends could be brought together or “approximated”. And he immobilized each patient at that angle.
All his acute ATRs, all his reruptures, and most of his stale ATRs could be approximated, and they all responded well to his non-op treatment. IIRC, he had NO reruptures among the stale-ATR group, after the non-approximators were sent to surgery. Details in the study, at Cecilia’s link.
It’s all bygones for you - unless you join my little club of ATR two-timers some day! But the state of the art has shifted in a big way for treatment of stale atrs.
July 2nd, 2014 at 3:29 am
@normofthenorth
Thank you for your comment! I did discuss a non-op option with the Orthopaedic doctor before my surgery (tho he wasn’t my surgeon because he specializes in Upper extremity) and he said that non-op option produces the same result as surgery but it requires being in a splint 0-2 weeks after the initial injury. However, I wasn’t put in a splint or boot or anything until the day of my surgery (1 month and a few days after~! because of the misdiagnosis) I was walking (limping) in my shoes everyday.
I’d have chosen a non-op over surgery anyday
July 2nd, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Around here, even non-op fans like me told that same story, and we had good logical reasons to tell it: the initial trauma starts a flurry of inflammation and healing, and if you miss that “window” after your ATR, you need the surgical trauma to reopen it. It all made perfect sense - then Wallace came along and proved it was nonsense!
I forget the exact numbers (but the full study is linked from Cecilia’s excellent summary), but he used the same approximation trick on a big inch of stale ATRs. A minority couldn’t be approximated and got a surgical repair. But the MAJORITY would approximate, and when he put them through his pretty standard non-op treatment, and they did GREAT! Small sample (60ish?), but the rerupture rates were a hair LOWER than his wonderful overall rate with fresh ATRs.
Given what we thought we knew about stale or misdiagnosed ATRs, this makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! The separated torn AT ends heal separately, and can’t possibly join together without a surgeon’s scalpel trimming (retraumatising) them and binding them together, we “knew”!
But the first principle of science is “If it exists, it must be possible!” And Wallace’s brilliant non-op results with stale ATRs seem to exist. If you can introduce that Doctor and your OS to Wallace, you may be able to help a bunch of future ATR patients get better treatment.
I wish I had a solution for the doctors who were totally out to lunch… Malpractice suits and a change of profession? Tougher Med school standards?
July 2nd, 2014 at 2:39 pm
TB, if you can turn on AJAX Editing in your settings, I/we can change inch to bunch…