Any advice about my injury please

[condaw10]

Hi everyone, I hurt my ankle running about two weeks ago and have read up on it and think it's peroneal tendonitus. It says to rest it which I have been, and it's now nearly healed but I'm not sure whether to wait until it's completely pain free or to try and do a short run and ease my way back into the 5k. Any advice would be really appreciated.

[neuropsycsci Graduate]

You should definitely be doing some gentle exercise to help keep your ankle flexible. This could be stretches or light walking (depending on your pain of course). Also ice whenever you have pain, and lots of heat in between, will really help it as well.

I think you should go back to running once your pain free. Be very careful to reintroduce your body to running slowly - otherwise you risk injuring yourself again. I would also continue to ice and heat even when you're pain free for at least a week or so to help avoid further injury.

A common cause of tendinitis is weak muscles / inflexibility. So maybe try and incorporate some strength and flexibility training into your regular routine to prevent further injury also

[dirkcb07]

Injury Special Training:

FIRST >> Get an Ankle support,

--Do a WEEK of "Easy Runs",

paying special attention to the Ankles.

--Work your way up, from the week BEFORE your injury.

--ALSO do EXTRA Ankle Exercises, at LEAST twice a day !!

--As long as the pain "level" is low, you can continue.

**Due to "phantom" pain, you might never be "Free" of the pain !! **

notes:

-- said "at LEAST twice a day"

-- IF you wish to do more,

there is to be AT LEAST 20mins between sets of exercises !!

(20 times in a day ??!!??)

--The more you do these exercises, the sooner you will be "Healed" !!

[McFitty Graduate]

Poor you! I'm sure that sounds like the same thing that melly4012 suffered with. It was quite a protracted IC stay as far as I remember. I can't give any proper qualified advice (cos I'm not proper qualified) 😉but I can send you big hugs and say hope you're back to 100% really soon x

[melly4012 Graduate]

Hi, thanks McFitty for drawing my attention to the post! I am literally 3 weeks into recovery runs from peroneal tendinosis (which apparently is slightly different to tendonitis). I thought I had a stress fracture as it hurt when I squeezed my heel with my hand and hurt more when I was running on it but not so much when I rested it. Also had some slight swelling under my ankle which is how the sports physio diagnosed it. Do you think this is what you might have?

Unfortunately the rest period is suggested at 4-8 weeks (I was closer to 8 weeks)! Running on it is the worst thing you can do and I was told if you run on it before it's completely healed then it will just recur. The sports physio told me that once I could hop on the affected foot and it felt as 'springy' as the other foot then I was ok to run again.

Use anti-inflammatory gel daily to help ease it. Peroneal tendon is problematic when you have tight calf muscles so lots of calf stretches will stop it recurring and I have found some great stretches for the side of the ankle area which I can share if you like. Mine was made worse by having rubbish shoes so if you haven't yet had a gait analysis and bought some proper running shoes then please make sure you do! If you can get to a sports physio to have a proper look I would really recommend it as they will be able to work out exactly what the problem is and how it was caused. Fingers crossed for a quick recovery for you!

[melly4012 Graduate in reply to melly4012]

P.S. If it is the same thing there the sports physio told me that unfortunately there are no exercises that can help it heal, it just needs to be good shoes and calf & peroneal muscles stretches to stop it happening again.

[condaw10 Graduate in reply to melly4012]

Hi, Thanks for your reply, I actually think I have what you have although my pain and swelling is more on the outside of my ankle, but I have had really tight calf muscles from not strectching out properly, so maybe that was the trigger. I am going to get my gait tested because I am slightly flat footed and have to wear insoles to help, and buy some better trainers. I would really appreciate any stretches you can recommend as I've realised I haven't been strectching out as much as I should so that is a must from now on.

[melly4012 Graduate in reply to condaw10]

No problem. It's really hard to stretch the peroneal muscle but basically the best stretch I've come across I'll describe below. Make sure you do lots of calf stretches too. Remember to wait until your ankle feels springy to hop on before running on it otherwise it will just flare up again.

Stand with your heels together. Keeping your heels touching and also flat on the floor, try to put the toes of one foot on top of the toes of the other foot. Sometimes this is all you need to do to feel a stretch but if you're still not feeling it then bend your knees as you do it and you should feel the stretch down the outside of your leg above your ankle almost at once. Try to get your toes as stretched over your foot as possible. Will send you a photo of this if you need to! Let me know if I've made it clear enough! Hope you recover quickly.

[melly4012 Graduate in reply to melly4012]

It seems like I can't send a photo through a private message or post one on here! Perhaps if you need a photo of the stretch I could email one to you?

[condaw10 Graduate in reply to melly4012]

Thanks again, will definately do lots of these.