Originally Posted by
Riverside_Guy
Wow, thanks everyone for all the suggestions.
Am reluctant using pain meds as the "pain" simply isn't that great (more discomfort/occasional twinge), and somehow I can't see that it really helps to stretch the tendon. Could very well be that no matter how much I stretch, it may never get stretched enough to be 100% gone (like it was when I was a teenager). I do know that it's only one foot (but I always stretch both) and that leg simply can't bend at the ankle near as much as the other one can.
The morning stretching wasn't so much the ankle/achilles tendon...it was the foot, pulling up at the ball of the foot. And my doctor emphasized that it needed to be done the first thing upon waking, before taking a step on the foot. What he said is that the injury starts to heal overnight, and if you put weight on it before stretching, you tear away the healing again. What I did for icing was wrap an ice cube in a wash cloth and rub it on the sore area until the ice melted. That limited the length of time and prevented getting the area too cold.