Are you sure it’s your Achilles?

Recently I have had a couple of runners call in, both claiming to have problems with their Achilles tendon, and in both cases it wasn’t that at all! Very reasonable assumptions from them as the pain was in that area, but a careful taking of the injury history followed by a detailed examination revealed that in the first case, the issue was with the Tibialis Posterior tendon which runs down the inside of the ankle and supports the arch, but can refer pain up the inside of the leg close to the Achilles, and in the second case it was a calf tear of the Soleus muscle which was referring pain into the Achilles. Again close but no cigar as the management plan for both of these injuries is very different to that of an Achilles tendon injury. Armed with the correct information, both runners were able to crack on with the right rehabilitation plan, avoiding them wasted time going down a cul-de-sac chasing the wrong diagnosis, and therefore speeding their recovery back to running.

Summary

If you are unlucky enough to get a running injury, having a correct assessment and diagnosis can help to focus your efforts towards doing the right thing for your injury, getting you back to activity more quickly and saving a lot of heartache and frustration along the way.

If you need help with getting active after an injury, feel free to get in touch with me.