Thread: Broken Heel- calcaneus

Swim finds in the bath tub. Now that will really make the wife happy, LOL..... Actually, as soon as I can (with Dr's ok) I plan to join a gym that has a pool....

Thanks for the advice

Yet another broken heel here. I was skiing Park Lane in Breck closing day yesterday and I came up short on a 45 foot backflip and landed straight-legged. I smashed on the knuckle, right ski came off, and right foot exploded in pain. I skied down on one ski, and hobbled to a ski patroller at the base. He checked me out, thought it was a heel injury and advised I go to the ER. At the ER, my x-ray showed a broken calcaneus. I have to follow up with a foot ortho today.

The ER doc said it was likely that I need surgery. I'll find out more this afternoon. Any positive thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

That Sucks Zartagen! Sorry Man! Find a Orthopedic doctor who only works on feet and ankles. That will be your best bet for success! You've got kind of a long road to recovery ahead of you, but you'll get there! pm me if you want the name of my doc! He did an amazing job of fixing me after 2 other regular otho's left me limping!

Hang in there and prayers and positive vibes for you!!!

Thanks, I saw a foot specialist here in Vail on Monday and had surgery Tuesday morning. He put in 2 screws and I'm non weight bearing for at least 6 weeks. Thankfully, my foot stopped hurting about 24 hours after the surgery. The worst part of this is a cramp in my right hamstring from holding up the hurt foot.

I broke my back 2 years ago, so I'm no stranger to long recoveries. So far, this is a much easier recovery process than that was.

broke both my heels 9-2-12 riding motocross and i dont need surgery on them.. just got my hard casts on yesterday, and the doc says ima need to have my casts on for two months! im hoping for a sooner recovery me being 23 and fairly healthy.. your guys thoughts? this is the best thread i came across

Whatever you do I wouldn't push it. As far as I know there is not much to be done to speed up recovery, and when I got back on mine too soon I ended up having pain for a couple of years. Suck up an extra month of healing time to not have to worry about it in the long term.

@ cmor- thanks man. i guess all i can do is stay off them and try and eat healthy, wanna get back on my bike asap

thanks man, its cool to be able to talk to someone that had the same injury... how long was it before u felt like you were back to normal?

Hey guys, I'm 5 months out from breaking mine. I figured I'd summarize my recovery here.

I was on crutches and in a boot for 2 months. I started easing into walking slowly, starting with one crutch. I went to no crutches and no boot about 2 weeks after that. If I walked too much, I'd get a serious limp and I'd have to take a day off the foot for it to feel better.

I did PT from week 6 to week 12 twice a week, as well.

The swelling didn't really go away until about 3 months out and that eased up the pain immensely. I then started walking more and suffered a setback when the doc gave me a night splint to stretch out my foot at night. The damn thing stretched too much and I had pain and swelling for another 2 weeks.

From 3 months on, I started riding my mountain bike more and stretching and really working on my range of motion. The pain stopped coming from the fracture and more from the ankle movement. The more I worked on that, the less arthritic my ankle would feel. It would hurt that day, but I'd wake up the next day feeling even better.

After 4 months, it certainly wasn't 100%, but it no longer held me back from doing what I wanted. I've been hiking and climbing and biking pretty hard with little to no pain. Now there's just a little ankle stiffness after a long hike.

Because I got screws in mine, I was able to keep it moving as much as possible throughout the healing process. As soon as you can, I'd recommend moving your ankle as much as you can, but take it easy on the weight bearing.

Keep your head up, it'll be healed before you know it.