this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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Well my achilles tendons are well and truly fv(k£d. Just when I'm coming up to my final surgery and the light was at the end of the tunnel with regard to being able to go back to wearing shoes and walking fairly normally soon. Now I don't know how long this will take - the last time it got so bad I was in a plaster cast for 10 days and couldn't walk properly for months but that was 20 years ago! I thought this issue had gone away. I really think the Universe just can't stand to see me catch a break. Or am I meant to be learning something from all this? I saw a youtube video of a woman who'd had a terrible life and she said she had chosen all the awful things that happened to he before she was born so she could learn from them. Is that just cope? Did I choose all this shit before I was born? Because if so I have changed my mind and would like it to end now. People always say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I don't believe that. I am worn down. As soon as one problem seems close to being solved, another worse one takes its place.
chronic achilles injuries are so awful — my right one is severely fucked beyond belief and i’m in the beginning stages of issues with my left (probably from like 10 years of uneven weight distribution falling on my left leg all the time.) i feel like it’s something super overlooked/seldom spoken about in the greater spectrum of mobility issues and i never hear other people talking about it. it sucks and you aren’t alone. please try to hang in there.
Thanks. It's just I've been trapped indoors for months since my last foot surgery and finally it healed enough to go out and now this. I feel like a prisoner, I can never go out. I'm so frustrated and it's doing my head in. At least with my foot surgeries I know it will heal after a time but this? No idea if or when it will be better.
i’m so sorry that all of this has been so hard on you. healing from this type of stuff is so excruciatingly slow and being trapped inside is absolutely a nightmare scenario. i hope that, at least, the time at home has been beneficial to your healing process with the surgery. taking care of yourself right now is the highest priority.
if you haven’t tried already and if you have the means and funds to do so, a physical therapy program might be able to help you build strength/alleviate pain. if it’s too much for right now its definitely something to consider in the future. if you’re unable to drive or walk to public transport and if you live in the US, i know that it isn’t too uncommon for PT places to arrange transport to/from the program for you using insurance or medicaid if you have it (i would see this at the one i went to but didn’t need it myself so i unfortunately don’t have personal experience in trying to arrange it all.)
I live in the UK. I have appointments with the NHS physiotherpaist about 2 or three times a year. I have another one in 2 weeks. But they're completely useless. And I can't afford private.
i’m not super familiar with services in the UK but i know that things like this aren’t an uncommon occurrence there. i hope that all of this becomes more manageable for you soon and that you’re eventually pain free. if you have the ability to do small exercises at home there’s a ton of online resources for ones that would benefit the achilles/whatever would work for you the most that might be helpful in between those physiotherapy appointments.
Thanks. I won't ever be pain free because of issues caused by a stroke, the physio even said I have to learn to live with it. But that's tolerable, I could cope with that level of pain and disability if that's all it was. But this achilles issue is really getting me down. I'm so frustrated trapped indoors immobile. Especially after months of being virtually housebound due to my foot surgery. And now I've got another foot surgery coming up on Thursday. I feel like a prisoner. I so badly want to walk for miles and miles. When I was able bodied I used to walk along the coast path for 10 miles, from my town, through another town and on to a third town, then get the bus back. I want to be able to do that again. But the state I'm in now I don't know if it will ever be possible. I feel like I might just be staring at 4 walls for years until I die.
Hope your surgery goes well, comrade. Do they provide any mobility aids for after, like wheelchairs or crutches?
It's quite superficial surgery, it's to debride and clean out infected ulcers. After the last surgery I could walk, but not wear shoes. There were some difficulties, it kept getting infected and I had to wear shower boots to keep the bandages dry, which were difficult to get on and off. But it was tolerable. I'm much more worried about my achilles tendons now than about the surgery.
Ah I gotcha. Wish there were more options available for the tendons, but I know that's one of those places that is crucial for movement and can't really be fixed the way we fix joints and other areas. Sorry you're feeling stuck too, because of it.