Fractured ankle - Recovery time

jaytobe

I fractured my ankle last week-end and had surgery (plates and screw). Recovering quite well but feeling like rush of blood to the ankle when I stand up. Has anybody felt the same and how long did it last for? What kind of rehab is involved when the cast is off in about 5 weeks?

MrPain

I had ankle surgery during the summer. I was in a cast for 6 weeks and 2 days;). While in the cast I still went the gym and did upper body, don't let it keep you from doing fun things. Bone healing is quite demanding on the metabolism so eating like a horse will ensure the bone heals as quickly as possible. When the cast came off the foot was very stiff. I went to a private physio as soon as the cast came off with a referral letter, with the public system god knows how long I would have been waiting to get started. it was around 2.5 weeks before I was going out and about whithout any crutchs. I had been without them at home since roughly one week after the cast removal. even after 3 weeks my walking still wasnt 100% though, there was still some tightness in the calcaneal tendon, which became evident on longer strides. I was back squatting after around 4 weeks:).

The Guvnor

How is the ankle now mate?

Movement - blood flow is important.

Obviously listen to the docs but as Pain has said get to a good physio asap.

Best of luck mate and keep us udated.

Bruthal

jaytobe wrote: »

I fractured my ankle last week-end and had surgery (plates and screw). Recovering quite well but feeling like rush of blood to the ankle when I stand up. Has anybody felt the same and how long did it last for? What kind of rehab is involved when the cast is off in about 5 weeks?

Its a few weeks after your post now, but i fractured the fubula and the tibia itself a little above the ankle on dec 11th. It was a nasty fracture.

I ended up with a full leg cast for 2 weeks after 2 initial ops, and when i stood up, the pain from the rush of blood was far worse than the pain at the time of the fracture itself. I think the cast was making that worse.

Had another op on boxing day, with internal fixation like yourself, and just a lower leg splint then. And a couple of weeks later a below knee cast.

Once the big cast was off, and swelling reduced etc, it was not too bad then. I had cast off at last x rays on jan 30th, but there was no noticable healing at that stage, so i was surprised the cast was left off, although this was to allow movement of ankle. It feels fine now, although it felt fine at last x-ray also, but no putting weight on it at all yet. Next x-ray on monday 2 days away.