Achilles Tendinopathy

Today’s topic is Achilles tendinopathy. What is that I hear you cry? Well, it’s basically a pain in your heel, let me show you. So just here your Achilles runs from your heel bone up into the calf, okay. It’s a big thick tendon. Okay. And we’ve seen quite a lot of people who are getting quite a lot of irritation on it at the moment, the main reason being is a sudden increase in exercise. So all that lockdown walking, running, extra sport you’ve been doing, it’s beginning to have an effect on your Achilles. Basically it doesn’t like a sudden increase either, if you’re running, for example, a sudden increase in speed, or distance. So you need to do everything gradually, if you’re increasing exercise. If you suddenly go from here to here, it’s likely to cause a little bit of an issue with your Achilles.

So symptoms include pain, a little bit of inflammation, it might be hot, and it might not be painful when you’re actually doing the activity but maybe afterwards, it gets a bit sore. And then as time goes on, if it gets a bit worse, it might be painful all the time. It tends to hurt when you own your feet. Sometimes it can get a little bit bumpy, just along along the tendon, sometimes just down here, you can feel a little nodules. If you do a little squeeze test like this, that will be quite painful. If your Achilles has got a bit of tendinopathy on it. And you can also experience symptoms up further up here, where it inserts into the muscle as well as down here.

So what can you do about it? Well, number one thing to do is reduce that exercise that you’ve just increased. So just bring everything back down to a much lower level and take it easy, okay. Other things to be doing are footwear, look at that footwear that you’re wearing? Okay. So here we go. This is the sort of thing I want you to be wearing. If you’re running, training, I don’t know, in the gym, whatever, even walking, if it’s not muddy and disgusting. Don’t worry about the brand, but this is a good supportive running trainer. Okay, it’s nice and cushioned on the bottom, it’s supportive here on the inside of the foot, and it’s got nice firm heel cup. Okay, the other thing as the insole comes out, so if you need an insole, you can put your own in.

So that brings me to insoles. So here we go. Here’s an example. So the thing that the Achilles quite like is when you take the pressure off it, okay, so often on insole with a slight heel lift, like this one’s got here is a good treatment for Achilles tendinopathy. It just takes the strain out of it to allow it to settle down and heal. So insoles might be a good idea if you’re really struggling with a bit of tendinopathy there. Okay, other things include ice, anti-inflammatories, you know, you can either take them orally or use a gel, that sort of thing. And rest it, do that as well. But if all that fails, and you’re still having problems, you know what to do – get in contact with us. Okay, you can ring us on 01372464659 or you can email us at [email protected]