What is it?
Achilles tendonitis/tendonopathy is an inflammation of the achilles tendon which is often chronic, causing adhesions (scar tissue) results in pain around your heel, bottom of your calf and in or around the achilles tendon at the back of the ankle. In many cases the continuous breakdown and healing of the tendon causes an obvious thickening of the tendon itself built up over weeks or months of microtrauma.
Your achilles is the tendon which attaches your powerful calf muscle into your heel. Via this attachment the calf muscles help you to move your foot when walking, point your toes and push your foot from the ground to propel yourself forwards when walking. It also acts as a shock absorber by buffering external forces when your foot lands on the ground to limit muscle damage. These forces transfered through the tendon can be between 6 and 12 times your body weight during activities like running. As a result it has been stated that it is the third most commonly ruptured tendon in the body.
Achilles tendonitis/tendonopathy can result in some swelling or thickening around the tendon, which is normal depending on the severity or if it is a chronic injury.
It is usually caused by overuse and an increase in load going through the tendon, due to
increased frequency, intensity, or duration of activity or as a result of poor biomaechanics due to unsupportive footwear.
It is common in runners when they increase there mileage, and other sports which have
increased agility and jumping such as basketball, racket sports and gymnastics.
Causes
*Change in training programme
*Poor biomechanics
*Poorly fitting footwear
*Being overweight
*Increase in activity
Symptoms
*Pain or tenderness over the heel/tendon/base of calf
*Swelling of the tendon/tendon feeling lumpy and tender
*Morning pain and/or stiffness
*Pain/discomfort when wearing higher fitting shoes putting pressure on your heel
How can you help yourself
*Stop and aggravating exercise until the problem has resolved
*Stretches can help to reduce the tightness in your calf which could be increasing the
tension on your achilles tendon
*Strengthening exercises to improve calf strength, and apply a tensile load through the
achilles to promote healing and improve the integrity of the tendon
*Speak with your local pharmacist for pain relief options
*Ice to help with pain relief and to help reduce the swelling around your tendon, for
20minutes every 2-3 hours
How can we help you?
*Hands on treatment to help stimulate the healing of the achilles tendon and reduce the
muscle tension in your calf.
*Personalised exercise prescription of stretching and strengthening exercises specific to your
condition, ability, and activity level.
*Electrotherapy such as interferential therapy and/or ultrasound to stimulate tissue healing,
reduce inflammation, stimulate muscle contraction/activation, stimulate the nervous
system to provide pain relief.
*Acupuncture to stimulate the injured tissue to improve the healing process, through the
use of specific acupuncture points specific to your condition. Therefore, increasing the blood
flow and healing properties within the achilles tendon, reducing the muscles tension within
the calf muscle, and providing local and global pain relief.
*We can fit you with off the shelf orthotics or our bespoke, custom fit orthotics to aid
your biomechanics to offload the achilles tendon and provide additional support to your
foot, or a heel lift which elevates your heel to take some tension off the achilles as its on less
of a stetch.
*Kinesio taping to help de-load the achilles, restricts movement, while still providing
mechanical stimulation to the tissues through the central nervous system, effecting the pain
response from movement, providing pain relief.
What about those that are stubborn or fail to respond to physiotherpay management?
For those unfortunate clients who do not get the results they need from conservative physiotherapy management we are getting fantastic results with an innovative treatment called Shockwave Therapy that we are able to provide at each of our clinics.
