Achilles Tendinitis

What is Achilles Tendinitis?

The Achilles tendon is the thick tendon at the back of the lower leg. It is a common tendon for the calf muscles (Gastrocnemius and Soleus) and inserts onto the heel bone. Achilles tendinitis is an inflammatory condition of the tendon, caused by overuse.

Symptoms

Achilles tendinitis can be acute or chronic. Acute injuries are new injuries which are easier to treat. If the condition is not treated effectively whilst it is acute it may turn chronic, which is a long-term and more difficult to treat form of the injury.

Acute symptoms include:

• Pain in the tendon which gets worse with exercise and eases at rest.
• There may be swelling around the tendon.
• The tendon may look red and thicker than the other one.
• The tendon may creak when you stretch or touch it.

Chronic symptoms are similar but may also include:

• Stiffness in the tendon which is worse in the mornings.
• Tender lumps, called nodules within the tendon.
• Pain even at relative rest, not just in sports.

Treatment

• Rest from the aggravating activity
• Apply ice or other forms of cold therapy to the tendon to ease pain and inflammation.
• Try using heel raises to take the strain off the tendon.
• Visit a sports injury specialist.
• A specialist or Doctor may recommend taking anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen.
• Use ultrasound treatment to aid healing.
• Apply sports massage to the tendon and calf muscles.
• Give you strengthening and stretching exercises.

Catching this injury as early as possible is important to your long-term recovery. Returning to sport following treatment should also be a very gradual process to avoid going back to square one!

Causes

It is important that you treat the cause of the injury and not just the symptoms. Common causes of achilles tendinitis include:

• Training too much too soon
• Running up lots of hills
• Running on hard surfaces
• Overpronating (flat) feet
• Wearing high heels regularly

Further Information

• Achilles Tendinitis - for further information on treatment including rehabilitation, taping, sports massage, stretching and more visit sportsinjuryclinic.net