Longitudinal Achilles tear
Lauren-Roche
Question:
Asked by Lauren-Roche - 6 answers - 1 year 5 weeks ago
Longitudinal Achilles tear
I have a chronic longitudinal tear in my L Achilles tendon. On MRI the tear is 3.5 cm and the tendon is attenuated proximally.
I can't afford surgery for the tear, and am doing regular concentric-eccentric stretches as per a tendinopathy protocol. Will it get better?
I am hampered in running as the tendon tightens a lot and burns, and I feel it may tear more. Can now walk a marathon in 6 hours though.
Would love to be able to run again.
Any ideas?
From Duncan in our Facebook group:
Try Extracorporeal shockwave therapy, if you can get to a clinic that has a machine, and i believe that this in conjunction with your eccentric loading program will help.Theres a lot of research out there to back this method of treatment up and as a physio working with elite athletes i've had some great results.
Cheers Sean, thanks for your answer.
I also have a torn Achilles, suffered while playing tennis. After visiting a sports medicine doc, he recommended physical therapy, to help strengthen the muscle, repair the tendon, and break up the scar tissue. He indicated that he would not recommend surgery at this time.
He said he would let me do an MRI, but he felt that he knew exactly the extent of the injury, and an MRI was simply an unnecessary expense at this time.
I'm worried however, that this injury will simply keep repeating itself, especially as it is the 3rd time it has happened, and the interval between injuries keeps getting shorter. I'm about to start rehab training, since I've been basically resting it for about 4 weeks now. I can walk and stretch with no pain.
Magnet Therapy for Achilles Tears????
My question involves magnet therapy. One of the primary problems in this sort of injury is that the tendon receives very poor blood flow, which impedes healing. I've seen that many pro athletes use magnet therapy to help improve blood flow to the area, and promote healing. I can get very powerful and small rare earth magnets I could wrap in a bandage over the affected area.
I've seen this type of wrap available commercially, and since the cost is very low for me to do this, I'd thought I would give it a try. Does anyone else have experience with magnet therapy for helping heal Achilles tears? Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
Thanks for all these replies.
The mechanism of my injury contains a really important life lesson...
Never kiss a man on a ride-on mower...
My injury occurred in late 2006 while training for Ironman.
In mid 2005 my husband was mowing the lawns, and looking so appealing I walked up to him to kiss him and straight into the spinning blade of the mower. Unbeknownst to me he had removed the guard from the blade as he'd been cutting long grass and it kept getting caught.
The mower removed the front of my shoe and a large part of the end of my big toe, including all of the nail and most of the tip.
Surgery to tidy this up severed the flexor tendon of the big toe, so when I ran I could no longer toe-off.
This affected the biomechanics of the foot and affected the Achilles which later tore when I accidentally dropped my heel off a high kerb when carrying a suitcase,
So the moral of this very long story is - never kiss someone on a ride-on mower if you want to do endurance running!
Find a Bowen therapist and a good Pilates teacher trained bij STOTT.
Good luck, Rina