Kinda been on a 'bender

[salsabike]

Scrappy, if it were me I'd go see a sports PT. If you're in Seattle, Real Rehab is a great place for that.

[Scrappy]

Thanks and Hello! I have been seeing a trainer to strengthen my legs but I'd really love to get back to at least a small amount of light walking/jogging. It's been 7+ months since the last operation, and the Dr. says I should be able to resume normal activities without pain..... grrrrrrr..

[Catrin]

Welcome back, and good luck with returning to activities! It does sound like a Sports PT might be a good option if you have access to one.

[OakLeaf]

To beat my favorite still-dead horse, how much work has your PT been doing on your foot strength and flexibility? Knees have nothing to support and align them except for what's above and below them in the kinetic chain ...

[colorisnt]

^That's a good point. I think people tend to forget the importance of their feet and ankles but in horses, it's usually the first place we are taught to look. Makes total sense to me but my sister is a runner and most PT's she has had for coming back from fractures, partial tears, chronic soreness, have ignored those feet. Until she found a good place, nothing seemed to get better. Turns out she was having issues with foot and ankle stability.

As for cycling, can you get on that first before the jogging? If you could get on the bike first, you might be able to lose some weight or at least transfer it to muscle which would help you when you go to run again. Not sure if that helps, though!

[ny biker]

Welcome back! I am not a medical person, but I do recall a lot of internal scar tissue when I had ankle surgery 20 years ago. Do you have full range of motion with your knee? If not, I think dealing with that might be the first step. In my case they were doing follow-up surgery 6 months later to remove a screw from my heel, and at the same time they broke through the scar tissue. I was asleep from sedation but it woke me up, because it involved pushing really hard on my foot.

Another thing I remember about that surgery was that it took a long time for all the pain to go away. It was a very slow, gradual process. Months after the surgery, it hurt to move my foot in certain ways and it was stiff and painful when I first woke up in the morning. About a year after the first operation, I realized that the daily pain and stiffness were gone. It was so gradual that I wasn't really aware of the improvement. I did still have pain when I turned my foot inward for several years after that, but eventually even that went away.

If you're cleared to resume normal activities and the doctor has told you that running is okay, I would try gradually working up to it. As Muirenn said, start with long walks. Maybe something like a couch-to-5k program would help.

p.s. One more thing about my ankle surgery experience -- all my friends thought that it should have healed much more quickly than it did, and they thought I was just a whiner when I was not able to be as active as they thought I should be months later. It was hard realizing that I could not rely on their support. But there are enough people here who have been through similar experiences and we are here for you, so feel free to lean on us if you need to. Good luck.