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Running with ankle hardware?
hdsqrl
Posts: 420 Member
Hey all,
22 years ago, both of my ankles were crushed in a car accident. The doc on call in the ER was amazing, and patched me back together with plates and screws on the outside of both ankles, plus a pin on the inside of my left one. The initial prognosis wasn't good - my ankles would probably never be weight-bearing again, let alone allow me to walk. Well, 19 yr olds have a remarkable capacity for healing, and once the casts were off, I went through several weeks of PT, and graduated from the wheelchair to a walker to crutches to a cane and finally to nothing at all. I was told back then that by the time I was 40, the hardware would need to be removed and my ankle bones would need to be fused.
I'm 41 now, and still have the hardware (I called several doctors as I neared my 40th birthday and all of them told me that if I wasn't having any troubles, there was no need to do anything just based on the advice given me at the time of the original surgery. They said I'd KNOW if the hardware needed to come out, and so far, so good.
The hardware does limit my flexibility, so jumping is not an enjoyable thing to do. Skiing is out, as is skating, but I am able to jog short distances (across a parking lot, for example, and the other day I ran for about 90 seconds on the treadmill - the next day my ankles were a little sore, but not anything worse than what I usually feel with changes in the weather.)
I'm contemplating seeing how far I can go in the C25K program - if it's only week 1, that's okay...it's more running than I've done before, right? But I wondered if anyone else had ankle hardware and was able to work up a little at a time to become an actual runner.
Thoughts?
22 years ago, both of my ankles were crushed in a car accident. The doc on call in the ER was amazing, and patched me back together with plates and screws on the outside of both ankles, plus a pin on the inside of my left one. The initial prognosis wasn't good - my ankles would probably never be weight-bearing again, let alone allow me to walk. Well, 19 yr olds have a remarkable capacity for healing, and once the casts were off, I went through several weeks of PT, and graduated from the wheelchair to a walker to crutches to a cane and finally to nothing at all. I was told back then that by the time I was 40, the hardware would need to be removed and my ankle bones would need to be fused.
I'm 41 now, and still have the hardware (I called several doctors as I neared my 40th birthday and all of them told me that if I wasn't having any troubles, there was no need to do anything just based on the advice given me at the time of the original surgery. They said I'd KNOW if the hardware needed to come out, and so far, so good.
The hardware does limit my flexibility, so jumping is not an enjoyable thing to do. Skiing is out, as is skating, but I am able to jog short distances (across a parking lot, for example, and the other day I ran for about 90 seconds on the treadmill - the next day my ankles were a little sore, but not anything worse than what I usually feel with changes in the weather.)
I'm contemplating seeing how far I can go in the C25K program - if it's only week 1, that's okay...it's more running than I've done before, right? But I wondered if anyone else had ankle hardware and was able to work up a little at a time to become an actual runner.
Thoughts?
0
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