Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Ankle progress

My ankle has been feeling very good and the physical therapy exercises seem to be working like a charm. (Give it up for Robin Caruso at NovaCare Rehabilitation in Ellicott City!) I have almost full range of motion in all directions and my stabilizer muscles are coming around. I can now walk on uneven ground without a problem.

I'm still unable to move fast, jump, run, etc. But I've come a long way.

I have to wear a compression wrap on my ankle all the time or else my ankle swells a lot. With the swelling doesn't come extra pain, and I don't feel pain as I'm doing things that cause the swelling. However, the swelling is persistent.

Yesterday I had a followup with the surgeon and he was surprised by my recovery so far. He said my pain is ahead of schedule - I can do things without pain that he wouldn't expect this soon. My swelling is on schedule. He said to expect that by 3 months after the surgery (end of July) my ankle will be 75% healed on the inside. At 6 months (end of November) it'll be 90% healed. That means the swelling is normal and will continue for quite some time.

My instructions are still to do whatever I can tolerate, pain-wise, but because my pain is mild with the activities I'm doing so far but I'm still having the (expected) swelling, I need to take the swelling into account and make sure that it doesn't get out of hand.

1 comment:

Sally said...

Glad you're healing so well! - Sally