9 weeks and counting
I have been having very isolated a 1 out of 10 scale of throbbing / aching on one side of my achilles. Not painful but noticeable and was concerning me. It started maybe three weeks ago and became more noticeable once I began weight bearing. It would do it a random times of day resting the leg or moving it. The feeling has dropped off in the last week or so. I thought it weird that it was not uniform since I ripped it all the way through the tendon. You would think the feeling would go all the way across the tendon and not be isolated to a single side.
I saw my doctor again today. I told him my concern and he did not seem concerned, examined my leg, and said it all looked good. I pressed him on the issue a few more times, he examined my leg a little more throughly, and he really did not seem concerned which I am taking as a good sign. He mentioned he looks for a few things, all of which I was exhibiting. He checked the following by asking me to lay on my stomach and flex and unflex my foot as he felt the tendon. They all basically look for good tension:
- The continuity of the tendon from the heal up towards the calf muscle. It it was loose of mushy that would be a sign of rupture.
- Good definition of what little calf muscle I have left. If it was ruptured it would be ‘mushy’
- Is my food resting in a good position. A ruptured tendon will leave your foot floppy.
I asked him about the Thompsons test which he explained is pretty inconclusive this early post op as the foot is resting where the test ends. He did how ever show if me if I relax my foot, press my foot more towards neutral with one hand and squeezed your calf you can feel the movement that way (not easy to balance and achieve by yourself though).
I am FWB now which is is awesome with the drawback of really throwing my knees / hits / back well just about everything out of alignment with the bulking 2 inches taller boot. Progress I guess. My ROM has improved to just about 0 degrees on a good day. Now it is time to buckle down on the rehab.
Filed under: Uncategorized and tagged 9 weeks
Hi , I certainly felt a certain discomfort inside left of my ruptured ankle and still feel a tightness more on this side when doing certain exercises . I can only speak for my own injury , but my PT explained that when healing you get adhesions forming . In other words scar tissues also connects to the surrounding tissues . Now I am in two shoes my PT massages the thickened area to remodel and help reduce these adhesions . I believe through time these reduce and the tendon gets leaner .
Heal well !
Wacaine:
You will need to find a way to level your good foot with your foot that is in the boot. Having the 2 feet at different levels will put a lot of strain on your body. I was able to do it by shoving a pair of folded up athletic socks into the heel area of my shoe. There are also commercially available heel lifts and you could also get custom made ones at a shoemaker. Or perhaps your doctor has some ideas.
+1 to what Starshep said!! I used a “cast shoe” — a strap-on Velcro “sandal”, designed to add a sole to a walking cast. But I strapped it to a sandal, and wore that assembly on my “other” foot, opposite the booted foot, while walking around the house. It made me level, so my knees and hips survived. For outside, I added multiple footbeds inside my tallest hiking boot, and I was very close to level. DO NOT train your body to walk out of balance! Even if you avoid injury, you’ll probably mess up your natural gait, just as you’re starting to try to remember how it goes!