Running is a passion: racing, training. It would only write about this, but the proverbial elephant in the living room , what everybody knows but nobody wants to talk (for fear of gufare), is the reality of injuries. Our injuries, fortunately, are much less evident than those of cyclists, it is hard you end up with a leg casts or less some teeth, but are more common and more subtle.
This chronic disease of the Achilles tendon is not my first accident (and is unlikely to be the last one): A year ago, I pulled back for a year with a knee problem for which it took me six months and a 'cortisone injection to treat. From that experience I learned not to expect (more than one month) before going to a doctor, because the pain in all'achilleo not passed, even grown to unbearable during hot chocolate run in December I decided to go to my doctor and see what to do.
I started with
physiotherapy twice a week, but after two months of stretching and ice packs with no signs of improvement, the doctor decided on a more active way and we have tried to iontophoresis . Through this injection "needle free", an electric field forces the drug, in my case an anti-inflammatory, to pass through the barrier from the skin and reach the tendon looks painful but it is not absolutely, as you feel a creeping where you applied the electrode.
were now three months since I ran the tests and for all solve the damn problem, and it became increasingly clear that this was not an accident but a simple inflammation chronic. As I told my doctor, who specializes in sports medicine (I highly recommend trying to get a sports doctor or a referral from your GP), the Achilles tendon is hard to cure because it is poorly perfused with blood . To meet this "defect" for a while 'for years, is experimenting with a treatment that uses the platelet-rich plasma, or PRP. The PRP
years now using it to accelerate post-surgical healing of tissues, especially in plastic and aesthetic surgery, in fact, everything that I have found Italian network in regards cosmetic surgery. English is much more, perhaps because the first experiments and especially the first cases involving professional athletes were made in the United States. In short, the PRP is created by spinning the blood of the patient (so there is no risk of rejection) and separating red blood cells and platelets from white heavier and plasma. This cocktail is injected on the site of the accident and the hope is that the plates contained therein catalyze the body's response and heal the tendon injury. This
very briefly, for my I translated a couple of articles, one published in the New York Times and the other su Scientific American , in cui viene discusso e spiegato ciò che si sa ed a che punto è la sperimentazione. Sebbene sia ancora in fase sperimentale, molti dottori la consigliano poiché spesso l'alternativa è un intervento chirurgico.
Il trattamento PRP non è piacevole: l'iniezione è dolorosa e per almeno due giorni non si ha nemmeno voglia di camminare. Da esperienza personale , questi dolori e soprattutto il zoppicare passano velocemente ma questo non vuol dire che i risultati siano visibili in solo una settimana: la visita di controllo è fissata per fine marzo. Fino ad allora, I have physical therapy twice a week, this half hour is devoted to strengthening and mobility exercises the muscles of the ankle and calf.
is still too early to know if it worked (the medicine is not an exact science): crossing my fingers, even toes, and I pray to be back as soon as possible to train - the one that is harder to accept is feeling of throwing away all that months of strenuous training have created.
Luca Grisa
