How to Recover From an Achilles Injury

Whether you have achilles tendonitis, or a torn tendon in your achilles, it can take time to recover from a achilles injury. The achilles tendon is just above your heel, the backside of your ankle. 11% of running injuries come from achilles tendonitis. There are different ways to treat an injury on the achilles tendon. Usually it comes from a sports injury, that requires a lot of wear and tear on your ankle from a specific activity. For instance running is a great example. Those who jog, can easily get tendonitis in their achilles. We all use your achilles tendon everyday. So wear and tear can be pretty typical and explainable.

Instructions

• 1

  Know the achilles pain symptoms. Obviously pain is caused, in the back of your ankle. Any twisting, or moving within that ankle causes pain, or any swelling that you might see as well. Pretty simple and easy to tell. If you have a torn achilles tendon, then it will be very difficult to walk. You'll walk with a limp, and avoid putting pressure on the tendon that is torn.

• 2

  Change your shoes. First off, sometimes you can get a bit of tendonitis from discomfort from shoes. Maybe the shoes are way too tight, and the top of the shoe heel is putting too much pressure on your achilles tendon. Get new shoes, make sure they're loose enough, not too tight. Make sure they're the right height as well. Try on plenty of different shoes on, until you find something with comfort. Maybe get a slightly bigger size, with extra padding on the back of the shoe. That way your achilles has more room to maneuver around. We've all tried on shoes before that are too short, and can feel the heel of the shoe digging into our achilles tendon. That is painful, your shoe height might be too small. You don't want to get a height that is too big as well.

• 3

  Put ice packs on your ankle, or put your foot in a bucket of ice water. Either way will do, but ice does help reduce inflammation and pain that you're feeling. It helps numb it away. Keep packs on regularly, or keep your foot in ice water on a regular basis until the pain goes away.

• 4

  Sleep on a comfortable mattress. Also, maybe put a pillow underneath your ankle to give extra comfort when sleeping. You want to give your achilles tendon as much comfort and rested needed. Avoid walking a lot, or running to help heel the tendon from getting torn.

• 5

  See a doctor. If you have a torn achilles tendon, you'll need surgery and have to require physical therapy to help recover as well. They'll examine you, to see whether you have torn it, or not. You'll probably know if you have, because you'll be it quite discomfort and have difficult moving your foot much.

• 6

  Still workout. Unless your doctor gives you strict instructions not to, you need to rehab that tendon. You need to build the strength back, and not get out of shape in general. Don't do things like running, that revolve wearing out the achilles. Simple things like cycling, and especially swimming can be a great way to help rehab that tendon. Discuss this with your doctor, depending on the degree on injury, he or she might say otherwise. You need to rest that achilles tendon, especially if it's torn. So before you actually start to rehab, you should discuss this with your doctor first.