Hey guys, if you haven't read about
Brian's P.T.S. Experience yet, check it out. In the meantime, here is a follow up that he sent to me, via email, about it. I especially love that he talked about various
stretching exercises that he does in order to keep his ankle feeling nice and strong. Thanks for sharing Brian! Glad to see that you are doing so well now!
I'm glad that you want to share my story on your blog, and would be happy to help anyone out who can benefit from it. I know that when I went through this, there was no forum like this at all. One of the reasons I provided so much detail was because there's very few detailed explanations (that the normal "non-medical" patient can understand). Truth is, a lot of physicians probably don't even have a lot of experience with it because as you know it's rather uncommon. Honestly, in a way, it was very therapeutic and liberating to tell my story. I probably mentally held onto this way too long. Thank you!
Yeah, I think for a few years even after I described I would get some occasional stiffness, aches, etc. But it was almost always after doing a lot of activity (like a long jog). Compared to the uninjured ankle, it might just be "a little more sore" the next morning. But, not a big deal. The one thing that I noticed for a long time, which has improved (but maybe not fully, as I still have to be conscious to stretch every now and then), is my soleus muscles can still tighten up quite a bit. To kind of stretch it out, I will put my hands against a counter top or wall and then bend my knee while doing a calf stretch. I can usually go down quite a bit further on the good leg. Also, sometimes I will do a "deep squat" with just my own body weight and sort of "sit on the back of my ankles" for about thirty seconds. Also, I'll sit on a seated calf raise machine, put some weight on it, and just let my foot stretch out for about 30 or 40 seconds. That really stretches them out. For the most part, this "feels good" (in a normal exercise stretching kind of way). But, over the years, I've just naturally seemed to have gotten a lot of ROM back without really doing anything special.
To this day, I still run a lot, row on a crew team, and lift weights three or four days a week. My ankle never slows me down and I never think about it, or even have any concern for it. The scar, which looked horrible for the first few years, doesn't even look that bad anymore. All the feeling nerves grew back and it doesn't "feel numb or strange" anymore either. It did for several years. Even though going through the injury was awful, the after effects of it seem to be more desirable than perhaps a bad sprain or fracture (at least you don't seem to have to worry about instability, arthritis, etc. like you do with the other more "normal" ankle injuries).
It's kind of ironic that I recently sprained my other ankle doing a trail run by my house. I'm seven weeks out and seem to be recovering as planned for a Grade II ankle sprain (ATFL tear). Still some pain and stiffness after being a boot for a month, but actually "improving" (as you know how it is with the subluxation... doesn't seem to "improve" a whole lot after you reach a certain point). I went to the same surgeon. When he saw me, he said "I remember you! You were a young guy back then" (ha!), but only goes to show how much I was in his office for this particular injury. He's probably had a thousand or more patients since I last saw him. He kind of discharged me years ago and I never really followed up with him. I told him that "you fixed my problem last time" and he looked genuinely relieved. He said "I wasn't sure if I did or not" because I had the pain, etc.and never really sent him a letter or anything (I figured he was too busy). Anyway, I had him check for the subluxation and he said I was fine this time... but like anyone who has been through this surgery, I'm always paranoid about it!!!
