Achilles Tendon Rupture, Non-Surgical Recovery | Week 11: No More Boot! Driving, Exercise Update

In Week 11, I provide a general update on progress, including being able to remove the moon boot for most walking situations, driving, a description of current exercises and demonstration of two exercises.
Link to "main" Achilles video, "Non-Surgical Recovery, Early Weight-Bearing - Tips for New Patients":
• Tips for Achilles Tend...
Time stamps:
00:29 General update on progress
03:03 Description of current exercises
06:22 Exercise demonstration and discussion of pain

[@Loccon]

I'm 7.5 month post injury, 43 years old, total rupture, non surgical route. I can run for about 3k. Still feel stiffness, especially day after exercise, but over all feel pretty restored. Can go for long hikes again 🙂. Was before injury very active in sports, such as beachvolley, and hoping to return this summer. Keep going strong. Also remember the "fear" beeing out of the boot after 8 weeks, but just be careful. At week 16 things felt quite normal again.

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Loccon, great to hear you are doing well ~8 months after your rupture!

[@claytonmyers4031]

You’ll be right mate, I’m 56 and had a complete rupture surgically repaired in Sept and I’ve been back to full exercise and contact rugby since Feb. I was jogging at the start of Jan

[@achilles_rupture]

Nice work mate, that's a hell of a recovery!

[@choychanma5695]

Wow, Scott, you're doing perfectly well...keep up the great effort. Me, too, with my right wrist.

[@choychanma5695]

Love you, Scott!!

[@franciscoa750]

Good luck im getting my surgery done this week, im 31 and i work in construction also very active in the gym and at home with 2 little girls and another baby on the way, that’s why i decided to go with surgery blessings for you my friend.

[@achilles_rupture]

Best wishes with the recovery, mate. You've gotta do what you've gotta do, and I'm certainly not in a position to be able to tell you what's right or not! Keen to hear how you go with the rehab and exercises. I guess my only thing that I'd recommend you watch out for is if your surgeon wants to prevent you from doing exercises for too long. I've heard a few stories where the surgeon is too protective (e.g. patient was still resting with no weight-bearing after 6 weeks).

[@joshuacondon1460]

How you doing my friend. I'm 6 weeks post OP, it is slow. I am an electrician and plan to still be again. This is a tough injury

[@joshuacondon1460]

How you doing my friend. I'm 6 weeks post OP, it is slow. I am an electrician and plan to still be again. This is a tough injury

[@achilles_rupture]

@@joshuacondon1460 hey mate, totally agreed this is a tough injury. For the 6-9 weeks period, I recall feeling a lot of frustration with trying to get back to work. That said, ultimately I did get back to work and as the weeks and months went by, it became much less of an issue. So in light of that, I'm sure you'll be back soon enough - just keep up with the exercises and in time the strength will come back :)

[@joshuacondon1460]

@@achilles_rupture I needed to hear this my friend thank you. There seems to be so much progression, regression. Mentally and obviously physically. It happened so fast and changed my life. I've learned so much more about Achilles injury in the last six months. You have to take this healing seriously

[@hawkh20]

Great video don't worry. I'm young at 24 and am just Able to do a calf raise at 12 and 1/2 weeks.

[@achilles_rupture]

Hehe cheers mate. Don't worry, I'm not worried - the video might be new, but the footage is old. I think the main thing I'm seeing, though, is that people seem to have different sticking points in their recovery. I think I got lucky with some of mine - didn't really have a lot of pain, and progressed pretty quickly in the early stages. In any case, I think the main thing is getting back to doing the things that are important to you!

[@hawkh20]

@@achilles_rupture yeah I realized this after I commented 😩🤦‍♂️. Thanks for the video though.

[@achilles_rupture]

@@hawkh20 hehe all good mate... you're not the only one. I guess I haven't made it obvious enough that this occurred 3+ years ago... But what's really cool is that I get comments of support; people telling me it's going to be ok and to hang in there. And that means that, as terrible as the injury can be, it leads to a kind of community of people who want to support each other :)

[@VictorAspidov]

Thank you for your good videos! How are you doing now? I got rupture trying to choose the way to treat

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Victor, sorry to hear about your rupture, but glad my videos have been of help. I reached the 4-year mark the other day. In summary, I have no regrets about choosing to go non-surgical, and I generally question why anyone would want to choose the surgical option if they have the option of going without it. My understanding is that whether you do surgery or just simply put the foot in plantar flexion, you are mechanically forcing the ruptured ends of the tendon together. Then you have to allow the body to do the healing (laying down the collagen fibres) and then undertake strength training/weight bearing to strengthen the tendon. Hope this helps.

[@tranxxaction]

Hey man, I just ruptured mine 3 days ago. Your videos definitely helped out. Are you going to post more videos of your progress?

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey James, sorry to hear about your rupture but glad that my videos have been helpful. Yes, I do plan on posting more videos (in fact, I did some recording the other day, since I reached the 4 year post-rupture mark). However, I keep failing to get around to it. That said, happy to answer your questions along the way - I get back to pretty much everyone!

[@tranxxaction]

@@achilles_rupture Thanks for your response Scott. They put me in a walking boot with 3 wedges. They specifically removed the top wedge (smallest/shortest) leaving me with the bottom 3 wedges. My concern is, it doesn’t feel like my foot is pointed downward enough, but it could just be that I’m paranoid and over thinking it. Maybe just a slight downward position is enough for the tendon ends to meet and heal or maybe there’s a lot of swelling going on so it doesn’t feel like it’s downward enough? Is it also normal to feel soreness around my Achilles and calf area? It’s day 4 since I tore my Achilles and day 3 in my boot. I appreciate your time!

[@achilles_rupture]

@@tranxxaction I had two wedges at the start, both were about 1cm. I don't know how big your wedges are, but if they've put wedges in and it's somewhere around 2cm or more, I think that's ok. Yes, definitely normal to feel soreness/pain around the achilles and calf area. Unfortunately I think this is where it's quite often different for everyone. My achilles was quite swollen, and for a few days whenever I was standing upright and had my affected foot on the floor, I got intense pain in my ankle and calf (I think due to blood pressure). There's not much you can do in the first couple weeks except keep it elevated and take your time/slow down. Hope this helps :)

[@tranxxaction]

@@achilles_rupture hey Scott! I just took out my stitches at week 2 and currently on week 3. My doctor suggested to let my wound heal for another week while in a boot and revisit him at week 4. It feels super tight and barely able to stretch my foot to lay flat on the 3 wedges. Is that normal?

[@achilles_rupture]

@@tranxxaction hey mate, great to hear the stitches are out and so far so good. I would say that it's normal for the Achilles to be tight. I'm reminded of what my physio said to me at one point (I guess I must've complained mine felt tight, too): he said something to the effect of "Don't worry if it's tight, it can always be stretched out over time". What you don't want is the opposite - for the Achilles to be loose, and you might have heard some of us discussing what happens when the tendon "heals long". So my personal opinion is that you can always back things off if something doesn't feel right. If your doctor is recommend another week or so for the wound to heal, then I would assume that preventing any kind of infection or breakage of the wound should be a high (or top) priority for you. I know it sucks to have to slow down when all you want to do is get back to walking/running etc, but I think it's probably better to lean on the conservative side and avoid re-injury (or in your case infection) than to do more harm than good and end up setting yourself back in the rehab process. But overall, it's your rehab and your body, and you are the one who needs to make the final call :)

[@DylanSika]

Hi Scott, do you look back on the injury and it wasn't as bad as you remember. I'm at the start of week 5 and still haven't come to terms with it. Terrified of it "healing long", not being attached properly a month into things and all those sorts of worries. I can't see an end in sight. Such a devastating injury.

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Dylan, no, I look back on the injury and remember it being pretty bloody awful. I wish there was something I could say to help you feel a little better about it. However, I would say that what you've described is kind of "normal", if that makes sense? There are lots of things that can go wrong, and I'm sure you know all about them. I was devastated, too, at the start, and went through a fair few ups and downs throughout the journey. That said, my recommendation for getting past it is just to follow the process and keep at it for a long period of time. The good thing is that, whilst "healing long" is a possibility, if you've been keeping your foot in plantar flexion, not stretching the tendon, not trying to walk around without the boot etc, then I don't think there's very much chance at all that you will heal long. At least, anecdotally, out of all of the people who I've interacted with in these comment sections, not a single one has reported that their tendon healed long. Additionally, I don't tend to hear much from people after the 8-10th week or so, which says to me that people start to return to normal and get back to doing at least some of the things they normally do. If you are getting quality advice from a physiotherapist or similar practitioner, and follow the plan, then it's simply just being in it for the marathon (pun?). If you don't think you're getting good advice, or you think your progress isn't what it is supposed to be, then it's worth considering a second opinion for a consult, maybe some ultrasounds to track your progress etc. Hang in there mate, you will get there, it just takes time (and a lot of calf raises)! :)

[@DylanSika]

Thanks for the reply mate. Alot of the problem is the uncertainly of how the tendon is healing, I'm 5 weeks in today and have had no follow up ultrasound since the initial one on day 2. I can feel that it's appears to have rejoined and doesn't have a big divot there now so here's hoping.

[@achilles_rupture]

​@@DylanSika haha yes, I remember the divot I had in mine and feeling better as time progressed and the size of it shrunk. So apart from that, if your strength is increasing and your exercises are improving, then I would say that you can actually be more certain your tendon is healing. If you want an ultrasound to see for yourself, then I'm sure you can find a practitioner who can do it for you (but that might come with a fee). My physio showed me the ultrasounds as I progressed, and to be honest, it was hard for me to discern what was good and bad just by looking at my affected tendon. Rather, it was the change that I saw over time over multiple visits, or by comparing it to the unaffected achilles - basically the less dark/black patches in the achilles, the better. But that still didn't tell me if I was ready to do some sort of activity or not.

[@DylanSika]

Hiya, I'm out of the moonboot and into a "Ritchie Aerospring brace"(google it) which means I've progressed into a shoe earlier that usual. Can you recall what sort of pain you got when you started to walk out of the moonboot. By no means do I have a normal gait yet and most of the time I get little to no pain but some steps I get an uncomfortable "pull" feeling through the reattached area and very rarely a little sharp pain. Cheers

[@achilles_rupture]

@@DylanSika that Ritchie aerospring brace looks pretty cool! Yes, I definitely recall the tendon being a bit tight when walking around to start with (but that's a good thing, as it can be stretched out over time). Usually no sharp pain, the general pain I would get would be the vague aching pain, sometimes the day following a lot of new/hard work for the achilles. My physio recommendation was that if that kind of pain lasted more than 24 hours, then it was time to back off on whatever I was doing that was causing that aching pain. Unfortunately, I recall "learning to walk again" for quite a few weeks/months - it gets better over time, just hang in there and keep up your exercises :)

[@nathanbaffoe7065]

I sleep with my leg high up try do that helped my pain and sweeling to go away now is just trying to walk normally without a limp

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Nathan, I used a couple of pillows to elevate my foot and calf, but had to sleep on my back. I certainly recommend people elevate the foot as much as possible, especially in the first two weeks when they can't walk anyway!

[@Dualex_Builds]

Did you ever have wedges in your boot?

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Dual, I sure did. There were two wedges when I first got the boot, approx 1cm each. Then one wedge was removed during Week 7. Whereabouts in your rehab are you and do/did you have wedges?

[@germbn6459]

Just wondering, did the back of your heel hurt after having to remove all the wedges out? Thank you.

[@achilles_rupture]

I don't recall specifically that the removal of the wedges caused pain. However, I do recall some fairly intense pain in the heel when standing in the shower on a ridged, non-slip mat. So I do think it's reasonable that changing what your heel is used to could cause pain. How long has the pain persisted?

[@germbn6459]

@@achilles_rupture Thank you for your response i appreciate it. I just woke up and the pain is gone. The pain started yesterday. It sounds like i just need to rest. I had been doing a lot of walking inside the house yesterday due to doing lots of house chores. When i say lots of walking i meant i am on my feet for more than half hour then rest for five minutes and i get up again for another 45 minutes then rest for five minutes. I completely ruptured my achilles seven weeks ago and no more heel lifts for three days now. I think i just need to take it easy i got so excited when i was able to walk in the walking boot. I also think because since i don't have any more wedges in my walking boot and when i walk it kind a rubs the back of my heel in the boot i guess. Thank you for your time.

[@achilles_rupture]

@@germbn6459 you're welcome. It's pretty crazy all the different things this injury throws at us as individuals, not to mention the variety of pain/complaints amongst everyone! Glad to hear the heel pain went away :)

[@germbn6459]

@@achilles_rupture I am glad it did! Thank you for your time and thank you for all your wonderful videos they helped me a lot. I watched most of them. I start physiotherapy next week.

[@achilles_rupture]

@@germbn6459 I'm glad you found my videos helpful :) Good look with physio next week. If they don't seem to know what they're doing or aren't up-to-speed on the latest Achilles research, you can always get a second opinion!

[@sagecreations8955]

Hey I have a question I’m at week 11 non op everything is going well but when I check to see if when I squeeze my injured leg calf muscle to see if it responds to my foot, my foot doesn’t move like my non injured leg. Is this normal at this stage? I can do both legged calf raises no problem but hoping my calf muscle squeeze test will later respond to my foot.

[@achilles_rupture]

Hey Sage, good to hear from you again. I'm going to be honest - I don't know if it's normal at this stage! I seem to recall someone else reporting something similar i.e. the Thompson Test didn't result in much movement of the foot (and they were worried), but I think their doctor/physio evaluated it and said it was fine. It's also a bit hard to do the test on your own, and who knows - you may be inadvertently tensing the muscle which counteracts the calf (the tibialis anterior). So I guess your own physio/doc would be the best person to ask :) That said, if you're doing dual-leg calf raises and you know that your affect calf/achilles is getting a work-out, I would say that's a good sign. Hope this helps :)

[@sagecreations8955]

@@achilles_rupture that’s great to know! Thanks! Yea I guess I do need the doctor to do the Thompson test rather than me. I go for a follow up tomorrow so I’ll see what he saids. But so far my doctor and physio both think I’m doing great so far so probably don’t have to worry. Also, I want to ask how you are doing with your Achilles so far. I would love to hear and update!

[@achilles_rupture]

@@sagecreations8955 Hi Sage, sorry - delayed reply. Great to hear your doc and physio both think you're doing well. Keen to hear how the Thompson test goes when you have someone else perform it on you. As for me - it's been about 4 years 9 months, if I recall correctly. I've been doing everything I've been wanting to do since about the 1-year mark (at that point, I went back to martial arts, although it took me maybe another 6 months for sparring to feel normal). However, my affected calf is still smaller than the other one, and I don't have the same strength in it as the other either. I'd dare say, though, that's because I don't train it specifically to improve. If anything, I've left it alone for a long time, or when I do train it, it's once or twice per week. So I think the lack of training definitely plays a part there. But overall, no complaints :)