Ankle Injuries

[Eileen0923]

This is a long story...
My 14 year old daughter fractured her ankle in June 2007. She was dancing and slipped and fell on it. She had a cast for 6 weeks then a cam walker for 6 weeks. The fractures were lateral and medial malleolous and were clean breaks She was treated by an orthopedic MD. When the cam walker came off in September he said she didn't need PT and could return to activities. She did slowly but developed tendonitis and synovitis at the beginning of October. She has beeen back to MD twice and still has the tendonitis She has had PT now for 6 weeks which has helped but she still has quite a bit of pain. She dances 5 classes a week and slowly started back to the classes and has been dancing all classes for a month. Even walking up and down stairs aggrevates the ankle. The MD put her on Naproxyn at the last visit which has not helped her much. Can anyone tell me what the expected recovery time is and aside from no dance what else can be done and what is the next step? Is tendonitis common after a fracture? Should I be letting her dance at all? The MD was really not specific-he said she could dance "some" but could not do gym at school. Running in gym class was what really started the tendonitis It seems she has learned to live with it and doesn't mind the pain. The PT said the range of motion is better but the tendon is still inflammed.
Thanks

[tulch001]

Tendonitis is awful to deal with. As a former competitive gymnast and dancer, there are exercises you can do to strengthen the tendons, and I did those minimally ... and iced a lot. I'd recommend the same. My old sports therapist had the best advice: do it until it hurts. Then stop.
There's good pain and bad pain, your daughter should know the difference. When it's bad pain, stop. Or it will keep getting worse.