Slow (for me) Horsham Park Run of 24 mins on Saturday but Achilles tendon very sore. Felt it last week when running 7 miles of roads around Horsham. I am not normally injured after 49 years of football / running / other sport so any advice appreciated on recovering from this type of injury.
I had this for most of last year and essentially did the usual things but to no avail.
Resting for a week meant i could then run/play football etc but only re-activated the pain immediately.
Ice and compression aided to a degree but with the pain refusing to yield I started self diagnosing and decided it was a mild form of tendonitis.
I followed advice found online and discovered the following exercise which after following it religiously for 3 weeks had seen enough improvement that I can now do pretty much anything and if it flares up I know I have a cast iron cure.
1. Stand on any step with your heel on the damaged side hanging backwards out over the step.
2. Using only your damaged leg lower yourself off the back by about 3/4 inches or as much as the pain allows and hold for five to ten seconds, keeping your damaged leg straight.
3. Raise yourself to starting position using your undamaged leg - NEVER be tempted to use your damaged leg for this step.
4. Repeat a dozen times twice with a gap of one minute between sets.
5. Repeat twice daily for a week.
6. If you see improvement in this time you can change the exercise so on step 2 slightly bend the knee of your damaged leg and continue with the exercise as above.
You'll need to continue this routine for as long as necessary but if your damage is as severe as mine then the Achilles will be sore to the touch and obviously swollen.
Within three weeks I was back to my normal routine and now use this at the first hint of any trouble.
Apparently it works as a result of the fibres in the tendons become tangled during tendonitis and the low impact directed stretching this exercise produces slowly stretches and untangles the fibres allowing them to heal in the correct position.
I hope it works for you as it did for me!