ankle and lower leg pain
I am 60 years old and have had a problem with my ankle for 30 years,ever since I broke it playing sport.At the time I thought the ankle was only sprained so never had an x-ray and it healed itself at that time but obviously not in a satisfactory way for the long term.
Gradually,over the years, discomfort turned into pain and about a year ago I saw a specialist who operated on the ankle(keyhole surgery) and that was very successful,despite the presence of arthritis in the ankle.Within a few weeks I was back going for walks and over the summer I gradually increased the distances walked until I was doing about one and a half hours a day,uphill and down with no pain at all.
Then,in August,to improve my overall fitness,I started doing press-ups gradually working up to 100/day in blocks of 20 spread throughout the day.
Around mid-September I started to get a vague feeling of discomfort in my foot around the ankle area during walks,but it would quickly go away once I was at rest so I never gave it much thought.
At the end of September,the day I was due to go on a one week trip,I woke up with a pain about 4 inches above my ankle on the back of my leg.I thought it would soon go away and in any case I couldn't cancel my trip which was important for my business.But it didn't go away and remained with me all through my trip.Unfortunately I needed to do quite a bit of walking while I was away so it never got the rest it probably needed in the first few days.The only respite from the pain was to take my weight off my foot as it went away when sitting or lying down.
When I came back I went as soon as possible to see my specialist,who gave me a cortisone injection in the ankle.It still took about 4 weeks before I was sufficiently free of pain to go for even a 10 minute walk but after a week of walking on the flat for 10/20 minutes a day I felt it "go" again and the pain returned as bad as ever.
It took another two and a half months of almost complete rest before the pain finally went away and I was able to resume light walking about 3 weeks ago.During this time the locus of the pain appeared to move from time to time,sometimes on the original site at the back of the calf and sometimes on the outside of the foot below the ankle bone.In the meantime I have had an MRI scan and fresh x-rays but the scan showed no particular problem with the peroneal tendon which I had suspected may be the cause of the problem.It did identify degenerative changes at the ankle joint particularly affecting the tibial talar articulation and the medial malleolus and osteophytosis particularly anteriorly.
At present I walk for about 15/20 minutes/day on a flat firm surface,but now I am starting to feel again the same feeling I had before the original incident back in September and find that after about 10 minutes walking I am again getting discomfort on the outside of the foot,below the ankle bone.After a 15 minute walk I appear to need to miss a day before I repeat the walk if I want to avoid this.I have had to abandon press-ups completely ,if I try to do them I feel a discomfort almost immediately.Interestingly if I cycle it appears to have no adverse effect on the injury.
My specialist informs me that no operation is required if the pain is manageable and I feel that an operation at my age would not in any case be desirable.
I would be interested in any thoughts or insights anyone may have,particularly whether you think it is just time that is needed to complete the healing process or if there is anything I could do to help that process or indeed any thoughts on the subject at all.
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