State of my Achilles tendon

[breakinglight11]

My Achilles tendon seems to be improving, though it's not quite back to normal yet. It was kind of bothering me all this past week since class on Tuesday the 18th, in a way that suggested that it was just overworked rather than injured in one particular movement or act. Usually when I have a sore spot after physical activity that I'm not yet in the right condition for I just kind of go about my business and wait for it to go away, but tendons are delicate things, so I didn't want to treat it wrong. I asked Plesser, one of my few really athletic friends, what he suggested one should do to take care of such a thing, and he said ice, rest, and ibuprofen, warning me that if it becomes tendonitis I could be in a lot of trouble, maybe even do permanent damage. Well, that sure scared me; I'm usually one to just kind of work through it, but I really really don't want to do anything that would permanently ruin my body. Fortunately because of Margaret opening night I didn't go to the ballet class I usually would have on Thursday, meaning my tendon got a week off from the dance that did the damage. I followed Plesser's advice, resting it with ice when I could, but probably not as much as I should have. I also made sure to try the stretching exercise that in_water_writ recommended, and in fact a good deep stretch tended to be the most immediate way to ease the pain. But to be honest, nothing I seemed to do, whether walking or resting or icing, really seemed to make it better or worse but time; it seemed to slowly improve over the course of the week.

I had ballet class again yesterday. I was pretty torn about going, as I don't want to miss too much class but I was afraid that dancing might hurt my tendon again, maybe even do real damage because it wasn't fully healed. I resolved to take it easy, particularly on the plies which I think were responsible for the injury in the first place; besides horseback riding where you have to keep your heels down, I can't think of much else your muscles are often called upon do that stretching for. In addition to not sinking as deeply into the bend (I have a pretty naturally strong plie so I can go decently low) I also stretched the tendons as thoroughly as I could beforehand. I think I should make a habit of that before every class to strengthen them and keep this from happening again. Fortunately with my precautions I think I can out okay. I still feel a little bit sore back there, but it really feels no worse than it did before going through class, so it was probably not monumentally stupid of me to try to dance on it. It's got some healing yet to do though. I will have to continue going easy on it and keep up the icing, being especially carefully to keep it stretched.

Comments

[niobien.livejournal.com]

Do you think it would be prudent of you to ask one of your ballet teachers about it. I know professional ballet dancers would likely be able to either sympathize or offer good advice because the achilles tendon is worked a lot in ballet, and if worked improperly, may leave to unfortunate consequences. If you let your teacher know that you have been stretching it, she will probably be glad to hear it from a medical and dancing perspective. So, if you feel comfortable bringing it up after class, your teacher may be a good person to go to.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea, thank you. I will do that.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

Agreed with above. Ballet teacher should have the best free advice.

My PT says the calf stretch I do will also help with tight tendons. It's a simple stretch- I'll show you this weekend.

When I had tendonitis, it took a couple of weeks of doing the exercise to feel consistent relief. Precisely because tendons are delicate things, the more extreme stretch of putting larger books under the toes had to be worked up to.

That said, if you're already treating it gently and working up slowly to larger stretches, you'll probably have it sorted before it gets bad enough to do permanent damage.

I think one thing I did when had tendonitis is use a light, stretchy ankle support while I did any of the activities that had caused the tendon pain. Since in a week, that was 10 hours of bowling/band practice, and up to 20 if I had two bowling matches and two band competitions that week, the support probably helped a lot. It was just a regular stretchy compression support from CVS.

Like this one: http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/catalog/shop_product_detail.jsp?filterBy=&skuId=151480&productId=151480&navAction=push&navCount=2&no_new_crumb=true#Prodtabdetail

I don't remember if you know septicidal, but she totally tore her ankle up by twisting it badly stepping off a curb. I'm seeing her tonight, and we go to the same PT office. I know a lot of her PT routine has to do with tendons, ligaments, and muscles in her ankles. If you like, I can ask her about some of her exercises. Our PT usually issues us paper copies with short instructions and illustrations on the exercises... if she has hers, I can ask her to photocopy or scan/email me a copy of her exercise sheet. Some of them won't be relevant to someone with relatively healthy ankles, I'm sure, but some of them might be good for general maintenance.