Achilles Anniversary

It was a year ago today, or at least pretty close, that I suffered my first achilles tendon injury. I recall a beautiful, sunny morning in south central AZ. My family was packing for a car trip to Disneyland with my folks. I had to run back into the house for something when I felt this discomfort develop in my left achilles tendon. I figured it was one of those things that would work out over the next couple of hours. I was actually surprised after a couple days that the pain was still there... Little did I realize it would be a pain in my a** for an entire year.

So here I am, celebrating my one year anniversary with my achilles tendonopathy. Can't say I'm happy in this relationship and am looking for a way out. Katie and I have been researching PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) therapy for a while now and I'm wondering if it is time to pull the trigger. For those of you not in the know, PRP therapy is a fairly new treatment modality where your own plasma (containing healing factors) is injected into the injury site. The theory is that by directly injecting important healing factors, it will stimulate repair of the injured area. The problem is that this has been poorly studied and data are lacking to support it as a recommended therapeutic option. Within the past week, a research article in JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) was published showing no improvement in outcome with PRP vs placebo in a small Dutch clinical trial using PRP for treatment of achilles tendonopathy. On the flip side, I have talked to people, runners, who seem to believe the exact opposite, that PRP works.

I have set some pretty high racing goals this year, none of which I'll be able to reach unless my achilles injuries heal. I'm currently taking some time off from running and focussing more on rehab, which includes PT and eccentric loading of my achilles. If anyone has insight to PRP therapy or anecdotal evidence of it working, please leave me a comment. Thanks.