achilles tendon help for a ballerina?
July 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: my achilles tendon has been quite sore lately. i am a ballerina and about 2 or 3 years ago i had this problem. i got it all checked out and stuff and went to physical therapy for like 6 months to heal it. when i came back to ballet however, there was no pain but i felt like i was starting pointe all over again! since then it has hardly ever hurt or had problems but now it is flaring up again and i dont know what to do! i am wearing good shoes all the time like my physical therapist suggested last time and trying to stretch out before ballet. but it still hurts. and not just during ballet but like most of the time during regular activity. :/ I just wanted some techniques or help on how to make it feel better until after my nutcracker shows on thanksgiving weekend. HELP!!!!! i need to dance!!! and walk for that matter. thank you 
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Some people just have a problem that always come back.
There may be nothing you can do about it that will fix it permanently.
You need to take it easy. Your Achilles’ tendon is NOT something you want to tear, TRUST ME. You’ll be completely incapacitated and that will be the end of your ballerina career. I’m studying to be a doctor of physical therapy and have had patients, who have torn their Achilles’ tendon, tell me it is one of the single most painful experiences of their lives and it sounds, and feels, like a gun shot wound.
You need to start out by getting it checked out again by your physical therapist or physician and get the A-OK to continue dancing. Wear an ankle brace for support unless you’re in a dance/show. Put on ice after each practice. Stretch. BE CAREFUL.
But be sure to check with your doctor to make sure you’re still okay to dance. An Achilles’ tendon tear is something you want to avoid at all costs. It’s no sprained ankle.
See Lyle Micheli,M.D. he’s a sport’s medicine doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital and was in charge of the Boston Ballet. I would put your ankle in a cast and let the damn thing heal for six to eight weeks. Then send you to therapy to get back to ballet. There was a great article in the Journal of Bone and Joint which is the best orthopaedic journal in the world where a guy took some scrapings of an “inflammed” tendon during surgery and looked under a microscope and noticed that the cells were fibroblast. (scar cells) This meant that the tendon was partially torn and was trying to heal itself but the patient never gave it a complete rest. Hence the patient kept tearing it and then it would try to heal and then when it was almost healed the patient would tear it again. This is at the micro level. Imagine gluing something together and because you’re a kid you want to test it to see if it’s bonded. Oops! It comes apart, so you add some more super glue and you leave it alone for an hour and test it again! Oops! It comes apart. Then you add some more glue … So the next thing you have is massive layers of glue holding something together but it can’t hold the pieces together because you got all this efing glue in the way. So your tendon is the same. You got all this effing calcium buildup and it keeps getting worse and worse because you got to go to ballet.
Good luck.