Physical therapy

My surgeon gave me a prescription for physical therapy. I asked him if I had to go to a particular place (as he practiced out of an office that also did physical therapy). He said I can go wherever I want.

I looked up places close to my house and chose the place based on a high number of highly rated Google reviews. While I could’ve ‘shopped around’, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to just get started as soon as possible. I called the place and made my first appointment.

I didn’t even know what to wear going in the door. Do I wear my new ankle brace or not? I just wore comfortable clothes and shoes, and left the ankle brace at home. It turned out that was the right move.

When I first walked in, I was asked to take a survey. Basically a ‘how bad is your ankle affecting you’ asked in a lot of different ways. It turns out I’d have to take this same survey every so many weeks, as apparently some insurance-related organization uses that data as to whether or not to continue approving covered physical therapy visits. (In case I didn’t mention it, I’m in the United States where healthcare can sometimes be confusing.). I ended up never having to pay anything for physical therapy. (I say that, but we’ll see if I get some weird bill a year from now).

The therapist had me remove my socks and shoes while he looked over my ankle and the swelling. He did some measurements and asked me how far I could twist my foot to the left and right, taking notes as he did so.

Next he introduced me to this contraption that helped introduce me into some movements I’ve not done in a while. The one in this picture isn’t mine, but it’s basically what I used. I would rotate the board around using only my ankle and it felt fantastic after not having done anything like that in a while.

Actually feeling that range of motion was just an amazing thing and what stuck out to me most during those first couple of weeks of physical therapy.

I also did other exercises that I was to do at home as well. Things like calf raises, toe scrunches, balancing exercises, and various stretches involving my foot. Believe it or not, the stretches were the hardest, and I still cannot stretch my leg and foot as well on my affected leg as I can on the other. There’s something about my tendons that were damaged, too, that still feel very tight.

Swelling would come and go during this time period. It was never to the degree it was months prior, but it was still significant. My first few weeks of physical therapy also involved some massaging. I was encouraged to do some of this massaging at home, too, with cocoa butter lotion.

I should give a status a bit on what I’m like at this point in my healing process. I can walk, full weight bearing, but I’m generally limping when I do so. I noticed that when I have socks and shoes on, though, something about that cushions me enough that I can walk without a limp if I try to do so.

After a couple of weeks, my physical therapy got a bit more demanding, and focused a lot on strength. Keep in mind that for months now, I’ve been relying on just one leg for standing up. So I have to both break the habit of relying on one leg for everything, and to build up strength in that leg to help me do so.

One exercise that helped with this was standing on a step on my injured leg, and lowering my good leg down until my heel touched the floor, then lift back up again. That was tough, but after doing so I found that I could go down stairs much more like normal after a couple of weeks.

Also, I did lunges, leg presses, and calf raises, all at higher levels. While doing this I’m also working on stretches, too, as range of motion was still something I needed to work on as well.

I’m a bit surprised that one thing the physical therapist never brought up was my weight. I know I could spare a few pounds, and surely that would’ve helped with my recovery for me not to put my huge weight on my injured foot. I’m sure there’s a reason they don’t bring that up.

Also, my therapist told me to not pick up running. Not that I was a runner anyway, but I have been known to jog a little when on my walks just to push myself some. I guess I won’t be doing that anymore. They said that it puts so much more weight on your foot to run compared to walking, that it’s best not to do that. So instead I will stick to low-impact exercises.

But that includes losing a little weight.

I’ll have more to share here - I may need to revisit this post.