Hello
This is going to be a long post as I am quite a ways into my injury.
I had a full ruptured right achilles on 7/1/2013 and I received surgery on 7/15/2013. I did mine at work while I was attempting to push a 300+ pound portable toilet at an upward angle onto a large flatbed truck. I was pushing up on my toes with all I had when I thought someone threw something at my foot. Then I fell, and then I yelled and swore for awhile as I already knew what had happened. I was in a plaster splint cast for about a month and then I received a hinged cam boot that was set at 22.5 degrees plantar flexion.
And then problems. Five weeks after surgery I ended up with a blood clot in my leg and was in the hospital for three days. I am now dealing with the “fun” of coumadin for six months minimum. My ortho didn’t move my foot from 22.5 degrees to 15 degrees for another six weeks, then to 7.5 degrees a month later and then finally to zero. I asked about PT and she denied it claiming that it “wont do anything” until fifteen weeks. She still wants me to wear the boot while I am out of the house (its been five months) but ive been wearing two shoes for three weeks now. Only now I have a pretty bad problem. I cannot dorsiflex my foot at all. None. I can barely get it to 90 degrees, and it will not go past that. My PT has been trying to stretch it out for three weeks and nothing. I cannot go down stairs with my good foot first because my bad foot cannot bend forward; and I cannot walk right at all because I cannot even lift my foot upward a small amount. My PT thinks I have a contracture, but when I let him know that I knew what that was, he clammed up. I finally went to my GP about the issue and he is concerned as I have 0 dorsiflexion and limited plantarflexion in my foot, and I now have a referral to a foot specialist next week. My ortho doesn’t seem to care about anything, and I only see her for about two minutes once a month. All she ever does is ask me to wiggle my foot, and im starting to get upset.
Do I have a contracture because she put me in plantar flexion for so long? Is it because I wasnt given any PT? Is it because she debreeded my tendon and then sewed it up without using a graft to make up the missing difference?
Anyone out there not able to do any dorsiflexion after five months?
Extra notes:
I do PT three times a week for an hour and a half each time.
Right now I wouldn’t call what I do walking, but rather lurching. I can only walk in socks if my bad foot is angled really far to the right and in front of me a little bit. My PT gave me a heel lift to add to my already heel lifted shoes to help me lurch better when walking in two shoes.
I found a research study in a medical journal done on cadavers that showed for every centimeter lost in the achilles tendon, the cadaver lost 12 degrees of dorsiflexion.
I have a copy of my surgical report and my ortho originally ordered a tendon graft to be used, but then decided not to use it as i was “healthy”; she also notes that she debreded the tendon but didn’t say how much of it she took off.
When I originally went on coumadin for the blood clot all she had to say was “don’t you know that coumadin is rat poison”. WTH????
Does everyones ortho have a terrible bedside manner and zero aftercare?