April 4, 2025 • 5 mins
What is the Achilles tendon?
- It’s the largest strongest tendon in the human body.
- A fibrous cord that attaches the calve muscle of the lower leg to the heel.
- You can feel it at the back of your ankle.
- It’s critical to walking, running, and jumping.
How do we injure it?
- The most common situation is during an active sport – rugby, soccer, basketball, etc.
- Happens with forceful movement sprinting, jumping.
- Quick stops or change in direction, direct trauma to the tendon.
- For older people, the tendon can weaken and rupture.
What are the symptoms?
- A sudden sharp pain back of lower leg or heel.
- There’s often a popping or snapping sound.
- People are unable to walk or stand on tiptoes, and there’s swelling or bruising lower back of leg.
- You can sometimes see or feel a gap or indent in tendon.
What do you do about it?
- You need diagnosis: a doctor will examine you and often order an ultrasound or MRI.
- Non-surgical: try and get to heal up on your own – only applies for a partial tear or a ‘non athlete’.
- Often put in special moon boot for up to 2 months
- Orthopaedic Surgeon: For a complete rupture, athletes, younger healthier patients – no surgery fails.
- Often within two weeks of injury, they stitch the tendon back together
- 3-6 months of recovery and physio involved to rehab and strengthen the tendon and get moving again.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks at b.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Quarter two eleven, Non News Dogs b Doctor Brian betties
with us this morning on one of those injuries that
any of us who happen to battle away in social
sports dreads are ruptured. R Kelly's tendon. So, Brian, what
actually is the Archilly's tendon?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, Hijack. Well, look, it's actually the largest strongest tendon
in the human body. Now, it's a fibrous cord that
is a bit of a rope type thing that attaches
the back of our calf muscle of the lower leg
to our heel. So you can actually feel it at
the back of your ankle. It feels like like a
rope or a bit of a cord at the back
(00:49):
of your ankle. And it is absolutely critical to walking,
running and jumping, so very very important in terms of
our movement.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay, yeah, it's absolutely vital, isn't it. But it's one
of those things that you hear people hear about people
injuring all the time. How do we actually damage it?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, Well, look, you do hear about all the time.
You hear about in top level sports people that they've
done their achilles tender. And so the commonest situation is
an act of sport, So that's things like rugby, soccer,
and basketball. And the reason it happens is that the
achilles ruptures or tears apart with forceful movements such as
(01:27):
sprinting or jumping or quick stops and changes and movement.
Or the other place that occurs if you get direct
trauma to the ankle, so you could imagine that happened
in a rugby tackle or at the bottom of a
ruck where it gets bashed and it can suddenly tear apart. Now,
the other place that occurs is with older people. So
as you get older, it tends to get a bit afraid,
(01:47):
a bit weaker, and it can rupture with the slightest
things like a slight trip on a curve or something.
It can cause it to pull apart because it does
weakend as we get older. So yeah, those are probably
the two big places where it occurs.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What are the symptoms.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, so look, if if it happens, you know it's happened. Look,
it's a very very sudden, sharp pain at the back
of the lower leg or heel, and often a companied
by a popping or a snapping sound. So that's what
people describe. They said, I heard this sort of snap
that actually occurred, and you are suddenly unable to walk.
And the critical one is you can't stand on tipy toes,
(02:25):
so tiptoes you cannot do it. There's marked swelling at
the bottom of the back of the leg and sometimes
you can actually feel if you polp take down the cord,
you can actually feel a gap or an indent at
where the ruptures occurred, so you can actually feel it sometimes.
But the big thing is you can't walk on this thing,
and you can't stand on tiptoes. It's just impossible.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Does it continue to be painful after the excellent incident
or is it once it's erupted and popped? Is it
kind of does the pain subside a bit?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
No? No, No, it's very painful, and people come limping into
the surgery until you start to get into what's called
a moon boot or get some definitive treatment. So no,
So initially, if it does occur, get ice onto it,
rest it up, don't walk on it, and start to
take some pain relief like parasital over brief and until
you can see the doctor.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, once you do see the doctor, what happens.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yes, Look, we generally examine it. We do this very
particular test where we get you to kneel on the
bed and we squeeze your calf muscle in and if
the tendon is intact, we can see the foot or
the ankle move, but if it's not, it just doesn't move,
so we know that it's ruptured. And sometimes we feel
down and we can feel this indient. So if that happens,
we generally get an ultrasound or an MRI to see,
(03:35):
Look how bad is it. Has it fully ruptured or
partially just torn? And if we know that's the case,
is generally two things we can do about it. Now,
if you're older, you're not an athlete and it's not
so time critical, we will generally put you in a
what's called a moon boot, which provides some support to
the ankle. Get to start to walk around on it
(03:56):
raises a heel and you'll be in that for about
six months, so it starts to heel itself up and
often it'll do that, so it's very good at doing that. However,
for those younger people, especially top level athletes, generally they
end up seeing an orthopedic surgeon and within two weeks
we'll have an operation on the tender itself so to
try and sew it back together again. And once that's
(04:18):
done your recovery time you're probably looking at three to
six months before you're fully recovered up about requires rehab, physio,
quite an extensive program to get you back and running.
So look, if it happens, it's not great, but you
do get better at the end of it. But it
takes some time.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
It's so miserable, isn't it. So is there anything I
can do just to avoid it? I mean, I just
don't get old. I guess it's the key.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, well, don't get old and don't play rugby or soccer.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, No.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Look, look I'm staying fit, all those things, warm ups
before you play sport, staying fit, you know, is really
really important. But occasionally it's just one of those things
that occurs.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Okay, all right, Hey, thank you so much, Brian, appreciate
your time. As always, doctor Brian Betty.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks at b from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks at b.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Quarter two eleven, Non News Dogs b Doctor Brian betties
with us this morning on one of those injuries that
any of us who happen to battle away in social
sports dreads are ruptured. R Kelly's tendon. So, Brian, what
actually is the Archilly's tendon?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, Hijack. Well, look, it's actually the largest strongest tendon
in the human body. Now, it's a fibrous cord that
is a bit of a rope type thing that attaches
the back of our calf muscle of the lower leg
to our heel. So you can actually feel it at
the back of your ankle. It feels like like a
rope or a bit of a cord at the back
(00:49):
of your ankle. And it is absolutely critical to walking,
running and jumping, so very very important in terms of
our movement.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay, yeah, it's absolutely vital, isn't it. But it's one
of those things that you hear people hear about people
injuring all the time. How do we actually damage it?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, Well, look, you do hear about all the time.
You hear about in top level sports people that they've
done their achilles tender. And so the commonest situation is
an act of sport, So that's things like rugby, soccer,
and basketball. And the reason it happens is that the
achilles ruptures or tears apart with forceful movements such as
(01:27):
sprinting or jumping or quick stops and changes and movement.
Or the other place that occurs if you get direct
trauma to the ankle, so you could imagine that happened
in a rugby tackle or at the bottom of a
ruck where it gets bashed and it can suddenly tear apart. Now,
the other place that occurs is with older people. So
as you get older, it tends to get a bit afraid,
(01:47):
a bit weaker, and it can rupture with the slightest
things like a slight trip on a curve or something.
It can cause it to pull apart because it does
weakend as we get older. So yeah, those are probably
the two big places where it occurs.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What are the symptoms.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, so look, if if it happens, you know it's happened. Look,
it's a very very sudden, sharp pain at the back
of the lower leg or heel, and often a companied
by a popping or a snapping sound. So that's what
people describe. They said, I heard this sort of snap
that actually occurred, and you are suddenly unable to walk.
And the critical one is you can't stand on tipy toes,
(02:25):
so tiptoes you cannot do it. There's marked swelling at
the bottom of the back of the leg and sometimes
you can actually feel if you polp take down the cord,
you can actually feel a gap or an indent at
where the ruptures occurred, so you can actually feel it sometimes.
But the big thing is you can't walk on this thing,
and you can't stand on tiptoes. It's just impossible.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Does it continue to be painful after the excellent incident
or is it once it's erupted and popped? Is it
kind of does the pain subside a bit?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
No? No, No, it's very painful, and people come limping into
the surgery until you start to get into what's called
a moon boot or get some definitive treatment. So no,
So initially, if it does occur, get ice onto it,
rest it up, don't walk on it, and start to
take some pain relief like parasital over brief and until
you can see the doctor.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, once you do see the doctor, what happens.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yes, Look, we generally examine it. We do this very
particular test where we get you to kneel on the
bed and we squeeze your calf muscle in and if
the tendon is intact, we can see the foot or
the ankle move, but if it's not, it just doesn't move,
so we know that it's ruptured. And sometimes we feel
down and we can feel this indient. So if that happens,
we generally get an ultrasound or an MRI to see,
(03:35):
Look how bad is it. Has it fully ruptured or
partially just torn? And if we know that's the case,
is generally two things we can do about it. Now,
if you're older, you're not an athlete and it's not
so time critical, we will generally put you in a
what's called a moon boot, which provides some support to
the ankle. Get to start to walk around on it
(03:56):
raises a heel and you'll be in that for about
six months, so it starts to heel itself up and
often it'll do that, so it's very good at doing that. However,
for those younger people, especially top level athletes, generally they
end up seeing an orthopedic surgeon and within two weeks
we'll have an operation on the tender itself so to
try and sew it back together again. And once that's
(04:18):
done your recovery time you're probably looking at three to
six months before you're fully recovered up about requires rehab, physio,
quite an extensive program to get you back and running.
So look, if it happens, it's not great, but you
do get better at the end of it. But it
takes some time.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
It's so miserable, isn't it. So is there anything I
can do just to avoid it? I mean, I just
don't get old. I guess it's the key.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, well, don't get old and don't play rugby or soccer.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, No.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Look, look I'm staying fit, all those things, warm ups
before you play sport, staying fit, you know, is really
really important. But occasionally it's just one of those things
that occurs.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Okay, all right, Hey, thank you so much, Brian, appreciate
your time. As always, doctor Brian Betty.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks at b from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,
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