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Achilles Tendon Severed At Heel In Accident
The whole experience is somewhat vague as I went into shock immediately (lost a lot of blood). When it first happened I just felt a quick and painful hit to the back of my heel and then had a deep feeling that something was wrong and that I couldn't walk. I was rushed to the hospital. Following surgery, my leg was immobilized in a plaster, then fiberglass cast for five weeks. I was then given an aircast and began slowly increasing the weight bearing by 8 weeks. At 9.5 weeks I gave up with the crutches and am trying to walk again using the aircast. I'm now at 11 weeks post surgery and I cant put any weight on the foot without lots of pain and tightness. Where I live its started to snow, and I use public transportation, so getting around has become a little difficult. I'm wondering if anyone might have any suggestions as to how long I can anticipate being in an aircast, and for how long the tendon is at a high risk of retearing? We have long winters. I appreciate reading all these stories of recovery. Helps to know that others have overcome this too. Also would be grateful for any tips others have learned in helping the healing process along/tricks for getting around on one good leg, etc. These experiences definitely show us the importance of appreciating good health! ---- Joshua Answers: Hi there. Ouch. :( So, three months in a cast, keeping the lower leg and ankle structures immobile, causes all your connective tissue to shrinkwrap. So it totally makes sense that you can't walk without feeling a lot of tightness. I'm curious about the pain though. If you just had pain and tightness from Achilles Tendonitis, that'd be one thing. But your situation is entirely different. Well, there's going to be a lot of similarities in the near future, but a sharp blade of glass totally severing your Achilles is a whole different world from normal tendonitis. You asked how long it was going to take to recover, walk without pain, etc. There's no easy answer for that. It depends on where exactly the tendon was severed. It depends on the surgery, how good the surgeon was, how healthy your are/were, how fast you heal, your diet and nutrition intake, how much effective rehab self care you do or don't do, etc. And Achilles tendon's hold SO much load and tension. A LOT. If you sever a wrist tendon and get it repaired, that's less of a big deal. But your Achilles, carrying your entire weight with each step, etc. I don't have an answer for you as to how much re-tear danger you're in just from walking around. Probably you're fine. But. All the muscles of your lower leg are TOO TIGHT. All the connective tissue in your lower leg are TOO TIGHT. This puts LOTS more constant load on your Achilles, and increased load when you walk etc. In my view, you MUST work on your lower leg to open it up and have it work better. This not only removes load from your Achilles, but helps your entire foot structure work better. Less tightness, less load, less pain, less danger. My #1 free tip for you right now is to learn How To Reduce Inflammation. You've got a huge amount of pain enhancing chemical floating around in all the half squeezed sponge of your tissue. And if you don't know how the Pain Causing Dynamic works, you really should. How to open up the tissue of the lower leg? How to help the tendon heal as optimally as possible? In short, self massage, and lots of it. For more details and guidance, you may want to get my Reversing Achilles Tendonitis ebook. It contains everything you need to know to avoid getting achilles Tendonitis, make it go away, and recover optimally from Achilles Tendonitis surgery. ---------------------- Please reply using the comment link below. Do not submit a new submission to answer/reply, it's too hard for me to find where it's supposed to go. And, comments have a 3,000 character limit so you may have to comment twice. -----------------------  Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T. The Tendonitis Expert www.TendonitisExpert.com
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