Jun
19
Seven Weeks, now with more crutches
June 19, 2009 | |
Okay guys, here’s where things stand. I’m at 7 weeks post-op, and I have one week of physio under my belt. My doctor told me to stop wearing the boot, switch to two shoes, but keep on with the crutches. Not so much for actual support, but just to keep people out of my walk walking around the city (NYC) to prevent accidents/spills.
So far, I’m pretty sick of crutches. I’ve been on them for about two months, but the doc is right, they do keep people from bumping into you. So far, physio is maddening. The problem I, and I’m sure most of you have, is that my achilles is incredibly tight, but for the first four weeks I’m only on strengthening, and very mild passive stretching so I can’t really walk correctly nor can I push of much with my injured foot, so my limp is pretty pronounced. For awhile I was kicking my bad foot out at an angle so as not to rotate too far forward on my achilles, but now I’ve been trying to get more of a heel-toe pivot on my bad foot. Hurts like hell, but it feels better. Also, now my heel has begun to hurt a lot for no apparent reason.
Comments
1 Comment so far
Hi Ziffy,
Your mention that walking more heel-to-toe “hurts like hell” makes me nervous. Is it the stretching of the tendon as you move forward and therefore push your toes closer to your shin that hurts? If so, I would be worried about pushing that stretching too hard as you are walking.
An alternative to angling your toe out is to not step so far forward with your good foot. When I first started walking in my shoes, my tendon was still pretty tight, too, so I started out by shuffling along, keeping my bad foot well ahead of my good foot. Over a week or so, my flexibility got much better, and I was gradually able to move the good foot more forward with each step, until the good foot was stepping ahead of the bad foot. That gradual approach, which was painless for me, might be better than stretching to the point of it hurting that much.
Best wishes,
Doug