Recovery from ankle surgery?

[173north]

I popped off last week and caught my foot in the stirrup - fell to the left, hurt my right ankle. Ended up with a spiral fracture of my fibula and found out today I need a plate put in next week, and maybe some ligaments reattached.

After that, the doctor says 4 more weeks on crutches, then I assume I start PT or sports medicine rehab. I was so surprised I needed surgery that it didn’t even occur to ask when I could get back to riding. Anyone have experience? Did you regain full mobility of the ankle?

I’m riding the best I have in my life, was excited about hunting this winter and showing in the summer, and am so cranky that I have to take time off for such a silly fall. I’m in my mid-20s and already have awful knee and ankle pain from riding… so if you just want to commiserate or smack some sense into me, I could use that too!

[red_mares]

You’ve come to the right place. Lots of experience with broken ankles on COTH:http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?333814-COTH-Trashed-Knee-Ankle-Brigade&highlight=knee+ankle+brigade

You’ve got quite a while before you’ll be riding again. The broken bones are the easy part. The soft tissue injuries are a real b*tch.

The general protocol for tendon/ligament repairs is 6 weeks non weight bearing + 6 weeks partial weight bearing. It varies a bit from person to person, and surgeon to surgeon. It’s not quick. Some surgeons will have you do PT while you’re in a walking boot, others don’t.

Follow whatever directions you get about weight bearing. The two patients my PT knows who had long term complications from ankle/foot surgery were both weight bearing before they should have been. One was a woman who was walking without crutches a week after bunion surgery. The other is me, who was given lousy direction from the OS after a bad sprain/minor break. You don’t want to be me.

When I had the major tendon/ligament surgery, I finished PT about 6 months after surgery. I wouldn’t plan on riding before spring.

[shiloh]

Ouch! You poor thing! I totally understand how you feel. I broke my ankle in August - broke it in three places and also managed to dislocate it so far forward my main bone was actually sitting on my foot bones. (You know you’re in trouble when your paramedic friends who show up to get you all go “Dude, that’s a mess!”) I have a screw and a plate holding it all together. The bones aren’t actually the problem - it’s the soft tissue that like redmare says “is a b**ch.” Don’t be me - I overdid it and managed to sprain my ankle - it WAS healing well, but now is not. I will most likely have to have another surgery. Oh yay …NOT.

Be careful, stay off it, do your PT with a sports medicine person and make sure they understand what it is you do. I was lucky enough to get folks who worked with a lot of riders; some of them don’t get it. Second the idea that you won’t be on much before spring. Spiral fractures take awhile to heal.

Oh and have your knee checked. I managed to do ACL, MCL and meniscus damage to mine in my original accident but my MD just pooh-poohed my complaints of increasing pain and lessened mobility until I threw a fit and demanded an MRI - which proved I was right. I have to have surgery for that. More ick.

Good luck - keep your spirits up!!!

[allons-y]

I’ve busted, tore, sprained, ripped, stressed, stretched and just generally screwed up my ankles. Started when I was about 11, constant sprains. Now I have “unstable ankles”, just walking is dangerous, lol.

I never stayed off as long as the MD wanted, stupid I know. I felt I HAD to go to the barn. I did have to go to work tho, I couldn’t work in a boot, so I Just limped and wore the boot on my days off. I also turned down surgery when I fx my patella, again I wouldnt have been able to work with a cast on. I am the Queen of limping really fast to Codes!

Anyway, I have very little flexion/extension on both. Of course I have waaaaay too much lateral flexibility! I can stand on my outside ankle bones! YUK!

Now I limp pretty badly in the am when I first get up, an hour later, I almost walk normally.

Don’t be an idiot like me. I’m not quite 60 yet and I really regret my choices.

[PNWjumper]

I had a horse fall with me on the landing step of a jump many years ago and flip me over her head. I kicked the ground hard and fractured my ankle and broke my fibula. I also found out I was a few days pregnant when it happened (though I didn’t have full confirmation of that until a couple of weeks later). So I was on a schedule to get back on a horse before I was too pregnant to ride, with a goal of getting to a show before I had to stop jumping.

They put me in my cast after surgery (to put in 4 screws and reattach ligaments), which was maybe a week post-break, and I went down to the barn a couple of days later to see if I could ride. The answer was a definite, “no!” The cast made my leg stick out from the saddle in way too of an awkward way. Also, they stopped the cast before/below the break in my fibula, so trying to ride made the broken bone click :dead:

I ended up back on a horse the day they cut my cast off. I’ve posted about it before, so you can probably search and find my to-the-day timeline of how mine went, but I can’t recall exactly offhand. I think that I had my cast on for maybe 3 or so weeks? They cut my cast off at that point and moved me to a walking boot. I would take the walking boot off to ride and just rode without a stirrup on that foot for the next couple of months.

I managed to get back into the show ring in the 1.30m jumpers for one horseshow at around the 12 week mark. I definitely wasn’t fully healed, and walking courses was difficult with the limp I had going. Also, landing from the jumps would occasionally hurt pretty darn bad. But we made it through the show and my ankle felt better at the end of the week than it had in the beginning. And then after that I had to start backing off of the jumping because of my ever expanding mid-section. But if I hadn’t been pregnant I would have considered myself pretty close to full function at that point. Took another 3-4 months before my ankle felt (relatively) pain free, though. And probably a full year before I had most of my ROM back. And then another year to when they pulled out two of the screws to stop having spasms of pain when I would crouch or squat down (e.g. putting on splint boots).

Now (8 years later) it feels the same as the other ankle and I haven’t had any major issues with it.

[173north]

Thank you all so much! This is a real comfort. It seems like a very common riding injury, lots of horse people I know are coming out of the woodwork to tell me broken ankle tales!

I’m glad I’m not the only one who totally overdid it and ignored doctor’s orders, ha. It’s possible I made a cast out of vetwrap and hacked in sneakers and a 5" stirrup the day after it fractured… But besides that momentary lapse in sanity I’ve been religious about not weight bearing. I really don’t want to spend a lifetime riding on a jacked up ankle because I rushed the healing.

Had my surgery today and now the word is another 6 weeks on crutches and then a few weeks in a walking boot. I think as soon as the walking boot is on I’m going to start going to the barn to bum around bareback. Good for the balance and I’ll be toasty warm!