Today I had my first physical therapy appointment. During the appointment, they basically did an evaluation for my range of motion, strength and pain threshold. The PT did some massaging of my achilles, as it had not been moved around since the surgery. There was some scar tissue that had formed, and the massaging of the area breaks down that scar tissue and alleviates some of the stiffness. The massaging was almost painful to a point, but afterwards it felt much better than it had before. Next he had me do some basic exercises--I had to use a belt while sitting up and hold it around my foot, then gently pull and stretch the achilles. I had to hold this for 30 seconds 5 times, with a 5 second break in between. I then had to do the same exercise with my leg bent at a 45 degree angle. Next he had me point my foot as far as I could, then pull it back as far as I could. I had to do this 25 times. Then I had to rotate my foot in as full of a circle as I could 25 times clockwise then 25 times counter-clockwise. The last thing he did was have me lay on my stomach and looped a theraband around a leg of the table and the end of my foot. There was a gentle stretch for 6 minutes. The more relaxed I let my foot get, the more it pulled, and after about 4.5 minutes it became uncomfortable. This was the final exercise of the day.
My therapist wanted to wait another week before beginning any strengthening exercises. My right calf has become very weak, as you can see in this picture.
This picture was taken from an offset angle, so it makes it look worse than it really is, but trust me, it's pretty obvious how much smaller my right calf is than my left.
At the end of the appointment, I was told I could move to some weight bearing, but no more then 25%--basically the weight of my leg. I'm pretty sick of crutching around everywhere at this point, so I can't wait until they tell me I can lose the sticks!!!!!!!
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