Lower leg/foot injuries and motorcycling

LePhillou

LePhillou

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So have a lot of you had experiences with foot/lower leg injuries?

I tore my achilles a month ago, and i'm not seeing the orthopedic surgeon (again) for another 2 weeks.. but in general, for those of you who have gone through this injury, or other similar ones, how long did it take for you to get back on the bike?

I've talked to the possible physio i'm going to deal with and of course they've given me approximate average estimates of when i'll be able to drive, walk without the walking boot etc... but any examples, anecdotes, personal experiences would be nice :)

Also i do respect/listen to the Dr's advice and follow it to a T but... just wondering what other people have gone through...

Usually i commute daily on the moto...and now i get to work from home but i still miss riding obviously lol
 
I shattered my ankle about 10 years ago (low sided) I got the compliment of pins and screws in there since. It took about 5 months to walk unassisted with lots of hard work, ended up missing one season from the physical injury and a second season from the financial/metal stress. Contemplated never returning to riding at times but the passion brought me back.

Good luck on your road to recovery.
 
2 years ago. Mother's Day weekend. 100% rupture of my left Achilles tendon. Surgery the next day. 4.5 weeks in a plaster cast (1 replacement at 2 weeks), followed by 6 weeks in an AirCast (removed around the house after my rugrats were in bed later in the 6 weeks). I didn't get on the bike until mid-to-late September because I generally plant only the left foot at stops and didn't have confidence in being able to hold the bike up if it tilted a bit (wind, pothole, ruts, etc.), not to mention the challenge of shifting gears. Physio started when the plaster cast came off. Twice per week for several months, then once per week for a few more months, then every other week for a while until I called it quits as I was nearing the 1-year anniversary of the injury.

Do what the physio tells you. Find a good sports physio as they're more likely to be a bit more aggressive with the manual work and exercises, and not just hook you up to electronics. Your profile shows Westside GTA. I'm at the west edge of Brampton. I was pretty happy with my physio. I can pass along their info if you're interested.

Good luck with recovery.
 
LePhillou said:
So have a lot of you had experiences with foot/lower leg injuries?

I tore my achilles a month ago, and i'm not seeing the orthopedic surgeon (again) for another 2 weeks.. but in general, for those of you who have gone through this injury, or other similar ones, how long did it take for you to get back on the bike?

I've talked to the possible physio i'm going to deal with and of course they've given me approximate average estimates of when i'll be able to drive, walk without the walking boot etc... but any examples, anecdotes, personal experiences would be nice :)

Also i do respect/listen to the Dr's advice and follow it to a T but... just wondering what other people have gone through...

Usually i commute daily on the moto...and now i get to work from home but i still miss riding obviously lol
Click to expand...


The DR can only go on the proven avgs. Work with your physio, dont slack and you will know yourself when its time. My accident left me permanently injured in 2005 and I feel it every step, every day. But the DRs (4 of them) all told me I was F##@ed and would need more surgery within 5 years to fuse the bones as one. I am still pushing hard and was able to race at an elite level of cycling again. Have major restrictions but if you want to do something bad enough you will find a way to make it work.
 
Friend tore his achilles tendon break dancing. 6 weeks after surgery he could sort of walk. Physio. He's fully recovered. Maybe pick up a scooter for the summer.
 
15 screws 2 plates left tibia plateau fracture along with acl rupture and miniscus tears (skiing)
Many stories of people who defy the odds as far as rehab ..me for one ..was offered perm disability and ortho gave me zero chance return to work but 13 months later was back at it.

You are young you will bounce right back...when I was rehabbing I used to frquent forums like Kneegeeks.com and get lots of useful info from folks going through same thing.
Best of luck and lots of rice
Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation
 
beverage said:
2 years ago. Mother's Day weekend. 100% rupture of my left Achilles tendon. Surgery the next day. 4.5 weeks in a plaster cast (1 replacement at 2 weeks), followed by 6 weeks in an AirCast (removed around the house after my rugrats were in bed later in the 6 weeks). I didn't get on the bike until mid-to-late September because I generally plant only the left foot at stops and didn't have confidence in being able to hold the bike up if it tilted a bit (wind, pothole, ruts, etc.), not to mention the challenge of shifting gears. Physio started when the plaster cast came off. Twice per week for several months, then once per week for a few more months, then every other week for a while until I called it quits as I was nearing the 1-year anniversary of the injury.

Do what the physio tells you. Find a good sports physio as they're more likely to be a bit more aggressive with the manual work and exercises, and not just hook you up to electronics. Your profile shows Westside GTA. I'm at the west edge of Brampton. I was pretty happy with my physio. I can pass along their info if you're interested.

Good luck with recovery.
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Thanks everyone!

Also my ortho surgeon decided to go the conservative way (no surgery) so after 2 weeks in cast im out walking in the airboot/cast...
His schedule looks something like
2 weeks in solid cast (done)
4 weeks with high wedge in airboot (halfway)
Remove some wedges and start physio to gauge where i'm going with this.

The physio i found was referred to me by a guy who does triathletes and works with triathletes and tells me she's really good and by talking to her she seems to be definitely a "get you back on your feet the most efficient way possible". Kinda funny cause jokingly she suggested i get a scooter for the summer ahha. Maybe it's time i look at electric bikes? No shifting!? ahahahahha

What also sucks is my physio coverage for the year (coverage years starts in july) is gone...wasted it all on a shoulder injury lol... oh well, i guess september might be when i get back on the bike, left foot is also my go-to for holding the bike like most people. Also sucks that i can't drive my (standard) car yet... we're expecting in July but they think clutch work should be feasible by then. Fingers crossed.
 
Conservative management is going to take you a good 12 to 16 weeks.
It will take awhile longer still to get your functional strength back.

Be careful not to over-stretch the calf muscle. If you do, it will have difficulty generating enough tension to create functional power/torque
 
I shattered my ankle playing soccer years back. A trimaleolar fracture of both sides of the ankle and the heel of the foot. Physio after the surgery was long but water resistance training helped a lot if you have access to a pool. It also depends on what leg/foot too for the bike. I just had a problem with my right foot swelling up with limited motion and a lot of pain (old guy problems) but it wasn't too bad as that's the brake foot so no need to move it around much. I jammed it into a boot and did a few hundred clicks Saturday and today. It was actually easier riding the bike than walking,
 
LePhillou said:
Thanks everyone!

Also my ortho surgeon decided to go the conservative way (no surgery) so after 2 weeks in cast im out walking in the airboot/cast...
His schedule looks something like
2 weeks in solid cast (done)
4 weeks with high wedge in airboot (halfway)
Remove some wedges and start physio to gauge where i'm going with this.

The physio i found was referred to me by a guy who does triathletes and works with triathletes and tells me she's really good and by talking to her she seems to be definitely a "get you back on your feet the most efficient way possible". Kinda funny cause jokingly she suggested i get a scooter for the summer ahha. Maybe it's time i look at electric bikes? No shifting!? ahahahahha

What also sucks is my physio coverage for the year (coverage years starts in july) is gone...wasted it all on a shoulder injury lol... oh well, i guess september might be when i get back on the bike, left foot is also my go-to for holding the bike like most people. Also sucks that i can't drive my (standard) car yet... we're expecting in July but they think clutch work should be feasible by then. Fingers crossed.
Click to expand...
Must have been a partial tear if surgery could be avoided. That's good (looking on the bright side here!). I chewed through my physio benefit, and my wife's, paid out of pocket for bit, then the benefits reset on January 1st and I basically continued physio until it ran out again. I feel for you. My commuter car was manual, so I had to swap vehicles with my wife for a while (clutch was never the same afterwards!). My oldest was 3 and my second was barely 6 months old, and I had the injury on Mother's Day of all days. My wife was not impressed! LOL.

My concern about getting back on the bike was getting into a situation where I couldn't hold it up and:
a) dropping the bike and damaging it.
b) tumbling into the (possibly live) next lane.
Not necessarily in that order.

The muscle strength disappears really fast when you're in a cast. The less time in a cast and quicker to physio, the better, but don't overdo it.
 
beverage said:
Must have been a partial tear if surgery could be avoided. That's good (looking on the bright side here!). I chewed through my physio benefit, and my wife's, paid out of pocket for bit, then the benefits reset on January 1st and I basically continued physio until it ran out again. I feel for you. My commuter car was manual, so I had to swap vehicles with my wife for a while (clutch was never the same afterwards!). My oldest was 3 and my second was barely 6 months old, and I had the injury on Mother's Day of all days. My wife was not impressed! LOL.

My concern about getting back on the bike was getting into a situation where I couldn't hold it up and:
a) dropping the bike and damaging it.
b) tumbling into the (possibly live) next lane.
Not necessarily in that order.

The muscle strength disappears really fast when you're in a cast. The less time in a cast and quicker to physio, the better, but don't overdo it.
Click to expand...
Yeah i've been doing isometrics in my leg, calf and foot. As much as i can without touching/activating that tendon...

For the standard car though, i'm glad i sold my subaru... the clutch was a lot harder than my buttery vw, we'll see how long that takes... we only have the one car. I guess if you did it with a 3 y old and a 6 month old, i've got a chance of surviving it. But what's funny about this is even though wifey's aren't impressed by it...it's still a freak accident. You can't really tell that it's gonna rupture in advance.

I don't know whether or not it was partial.. my foot wasnt responding to the input AT ALL... physio that was there when i did the accident + dr weren't seeing any response in the toes/foot when doing the usual tests...what my ortho surgeon told me is that he almost always goes conservative unless the person has had a partial tear and was walking on it for a while...
on my end, i wouldn't have been able to walk at all lol

I might start saving up for one of these after i'm cleared by the physio
http://www.afx-online.com/

I already have weak feet and was looking at it BEFORE i got injured, so this will greatly help once i'm ready for it
 
beverage said:
Must have been a partial tear if surgery could be avoided. That's good (looking on the bright side here!). I chewed through my physio benefit, and my wife's, paid out of pocket for bit, then the benefits reset on January 1st and I basically continued physio until it ran out again. I feel for you. My commuter car was manual, so I had to swap vehicles with my wife for a while (clutch was never the same afterwards!). My oldest was 3 and my second was barely 6 months old, and I had the injury on Mother's Day of all days. My wife was not impressed! LOL.

My concern about getting back on the bike was getting into a situation where I couldn't hold it up and:
a) dropping the bike and damaging it.
b) tumbling into the (possibly live) next lane.
Not necessarily in that order.

The muscle strength disappears really fast when you're in a cast. The less time in a cast and quicker to physio, the better, but don't overdo it.
Click to expand...

Sorry, don't mean to pry, but if you had an Achilles tendon tear/rupture, how is it that you burnt through 2 benefit plans and going on a second year of physio benefits? What exactly are they doing when you go the the clinic?

The rehab from this injury can be done mostly on your own, with the physiotherapist only guiding you through it. You should be seeing them maybe once every 2-3 weeks for them to monitor your progress and give you more challenging exercises as you need it.
 
LePhillou said:
Yeah i've been doing isometrics in my leg, calf and foot. As much as i can without touching/activating that tendon...

For the standard car though, i'm glad i sold my subaru... the clutch was a lot harder than my buttery vw, we'll see how long that takes... we only have the one car. I guess if you did it with a 3 y old and a 6 month old, i've got a chance of surviving it. But what's funny about this is even though wifey's aren't impressed by it...it's still a freak accident. You can't really tell that it's gonna rupture in advance.

I don't know whether or not it was partial.. my foot wasnt responding to the input AT ALL... physio that was there when i did the accident + dr weren't seeing any response in the toes/foot when doing the usual tests...what my ortho surgeon told me is that he almost always goes conservative unless the person has had a partial tear and was walking on it for a while...
on my end, i wouldn't have been able to walk at all lol

I might start saving up for one of these after i'm cleared by the physio
http://www.afx-online.com/

I already have weak feet and was looking at it BEFORE i got injured, so this will greatly help once i'm ready for it
Click to expand...

What your surgeon told you is correct. Many are going the conservative route now even for a complete tear.

I don't now if that bit of equipment is worth it. Just get a couple therabands and a foam pad for balance work. If you want to splurge, get a Bosu ball
 
BusaBob said:
What your surgeon told you is correct. Many are going the conservative route now even for a complete tear.

I don't now if that bit of equipment is worth it. Just get a couple therabands and a foam pad for balance work. If you want to splurge, get a Bosu ball
Click to expand...
After talking to my physio, she indicated that it wouldnt have helped prevent or won't help preventing it in the future. (It WILL help strenghten my foot and its proprioceptors...but thats it)

I'll re-evaluate after i'm all fixed up in the tendon. :)

Can't wait to ride.
 
BusaBob said:
Sorry, don't mean to pry, but if you had an Achilles tendon tear/rupture, how is it that you burnt through 2 benefit plans and going on a second year of physio benefits? What exactly are they doing when you go the the clinic?

The rehab from this injury can be done mostly on your own, with the physiotherapist only guiding you through it. You should be seeing them maybe once every 2-3 weeks for them to monitor your progress and give you more challenging exercises as you need it.
Click to expand...
It was about 9 months of physio, give or take a bit. Each benefit plan had $500 of coverage. Initial consultation was $75 I think, with each visit thereafter costing $50. After 4 weeks in a hard cast there is 0 muscle and 0 flexibility. Plus I had surgery, so there was a pretty good scar. Starting mid-June I was initially going twice per week, I think for the full 6 weeks I was in an AirBoot. A lot of manual range of motion work, working out the scar and swelling, massaging the calf muscles and tendons around the foot to loosen them, and electric muscle stimulation with exercises. You can chew through $1000 of benefits pretty quick at $100/wk so I switched to once per week at some point. Basically continued doing the same and more advanced exercises with the electric muscle stimulation, and getting the scar worked on (I've always scarred badly). and the benefits ran out shortly before Christmas. January, my benefits reset and my wife's were no longer available. I went once every other week until sometime in March.

I wanted to get back to being able to play soccer, and run, not just be functionally mobile. Pro athletes will be out for an entire year with a full Achilles tear, with all the dedicated physio and cutting edge treatment at their disposal, if they even make it back at all. I don't think ~9 months with the treatment schedule I had was out of line. And I had the benefits to cover all but a couple weeks. If I was paying out of pocket, I may have switched to alternate weeks sooner, but the initial twice per week and once per week to get things going were well worth it. I don't even think about this injury anymore, it's so unobtrusive. I'm not sure I'd be in the same place without all the manual work the physio did.

https://www.si.com/edge/2015/04/16/rothman-sports-medicine-achilles-injuries-kobe-bryant
 
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Alright, not that anyone cares about the update but if anyone else gets the same injury maybe they'll find this thread.

Got injured Apr 30
Stayed 2 weeks in the hard cast
Stayed 2 months in the airboot with a heel wedge
After that the dr cleared me to walk out of the boot and to start physio which i started the same day he cleared me (on the 10th of july)
The progress i've made in those 2.5 weeks is astonishing to me. I can walk almost normally in a normal shoe. When the physio puts K-tape on me, it's pretty much not noticeable.

Still not cleared to do upwards flexions, and gosh, so many exercises to do...but oh well i'm seeing results and i like it. Still not riding yet since i can't shift up which sucks cause baby is out and gotta do the back and forth with mommy to NICU and do "shifts" with her so it's not as convenient but i gotta make do.

That article about Kobe really puts it in perspective.
 
Everything ok with the baby?

And glad to hear you are doing better.
Congrats on both counts.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
 
Joe Bass said:
Everything ok with the baby?

And glad to hear you are doing better.
Congrats on both counts.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
Click to expand...
Meh... NICU is a weird world of "my baby could be in worse shape like that baby on the other side of the room"
So it sucks and he'll get through it in a few weeks (and we'll then be able to take him home)... but it's heartbreaking to have your newborn be pumped with more drugs than you have ever had in your own life as an adult.

In perspective it's just gonna be a rough bump at the start :)

Also we're lucky that sickkids is world class, top of the line.
 
We've (thankfully) never had to use Sick Kids, but always a part of my yearly donation list because of all the great work they do.
I totally get that it is heartbreaking though. As much as my kids sometimes upset me so much that I scream like a madman, they are the most important things to me.
Looking forward to you getting Little Phillou home!

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
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