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How can I reduce swelling after surgery?
Bones, Joints & Muscles | Last Active: Feb 4 10:01am | Replies (3)Comment receiving replies
@brigette22 Hello, and welcome to Connect. Ankle injuries are tough to deal with. It is hard not to be able to bear body weight, and then you wait for healing, and begin again needing rehab for weakness because of the strength that was lost. I can relate a similar experience because of a bad ankle fracture. That was more painful and over a much longer period of time than my cervical spine surgery. The ankle swelling goes on a long time. The entire first year, I got swelling that would come and go depending on how much I tried to walk on my foot. The first several months out of the cast had constant swelling. Gravity isn't helping when your foot is on the floor. Elevating it helps when you get it above your heart. I still get some swelling now, but just not as much, and it seems to happen when my muscles fatigue and I have to get off my foot. It takes a very long time to regain strength in atrophied muscle and it has been close to 2 and half years since the fracture.
5 weeks post surgery is very early in your recovery, so I am not surprised about swelling and not being able to wear a shoe. If you are concerned, it is always worth checking with your surgeon, and to watch out for blood clots that can also add to swelling. They are a risk after surgery, and also for people who are not walking because the blood can pool a bit and isn't flushed through fast enough. Swelling of course would slow that down, kind of like flood water that backs up from a stream.
Another question worth asking is how did the tendon transfer affect normal movement? You would be loosing the past function of that tendon and it's function was altered by the surgery. My podiatrist described something like this with a transfer that is done because of an Achille's tendon tear where another tendon that runs behind the ankle is moved, and the patient looses the ability to flex their foot. Is that kind of loss of movement what you are describing? Did your surgeon explain how your function would be altered by the procedure?
Replies to "@brigette22 Hello, and welcome to Connect. Ankle injuries are tough to deal with. It is hard..."
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I wanted to provide an update on my ankle recovery. It is now 4 and a half years after the fracture injury. I did have the fixation hardware removed from my ankle at a year and a half post injury because of pain and throbbing, and I was getting hives on my body. In the last 3 years, my ankle would tire out a lot and get painful in the ligaments and tendons. It seemed like they all took turns hurting. Sometimes I took a step off the ankle, and my ankle would collapse.
There was a lot of scar tissue contributing tightness, and muscles that were bound up. There were 2 scars from surgically setting the bones, and 2 scars on my shin from an external fixation cage that had been attached there right after the injury with some small ones on the side of the heel. I figured out that the scars on the front of the shin (tibia) were tightly adhered to the bone and contributing to ankle collapse when I was stepping off my foot.
The solution to this was to loosen all the scar tissue with physical therapy (myofascial release) and release the tension from the muscles of the lower leg, so that tension was equal all around. When you have a strong and a weak side because of injury, the strong side exerts too much force that is not countered by the weak side and it causes uneven and excess tension to be held in the tendons and ligaments. This was like living with a sprain all the time, and I could only walk about 20 minutes before I was in pain and had to get off my foot.
Working to release all that excessive tension made a big difference in the function and endurance of my ankle. I was able to walk and hike in the mountains going about 3 and a half miles with an elevation gain. On flat ground, I had walked up to 4 miles. This was at 4 years past a bad ankle fracture call a Bimaleolar fracture. For a long time, I didn't think it was possible. I do get just slight swelling after this amount of exercise, but in general, I do not have ankle swelling now. Myofascial release of tight tissue made all the difference.