Rupturing or tearing your Achilles tendon can be incredibly painful. Hearing that the only way to heal your tendon is to have surgery can be almost as difficult. You may instantly start worrying about the healing process and what the surgery will involve. The good news is that Achilles tendon repair surgery is not as scary as you might presume it to be. Here are some more in-depth facts about the procedure and recover process that you should find reassuring.

Achilles tendon repair surgery is a common procedure.

As far as orthopedic surgeries go, Achilles tendon surgery is among the most common. It's also one of the simpler orthopedic procedures as there are no screws or plates involved. As such, you can go into your surgery confident that your foot and ankle surgeon knows what they are doing. They've likely performed this surgery many times before, and they have the experience and skills needed to perform it well. This is not an experimental surgery in any way.

Achilles tendon repair can often be performed arthroscopically.

Unless you have completely torn your tendon away from its attachment point, your surgeon will probably be able to perform the surgery arthroscopically. This means that instead of making one long incision down the back of your calf, they will make several smaller incisions and perform the surgery through those small incisions, using a camera and smaller instruments. These smaller incisions are less painful, don't take as long to heal, and do not leave such obvious scars. Unless your ankle specialist has told you that they can't perform your Achilles tendon repair arthroscopically, you can generally assume this is the approach they will take.

You probably won't need to go under general anesthesia.

For many people, the scariest part of having surgery is being put under general anesthesia. The good news is that this is not usually necessary for Achilles tendon surgery. These days, it is quite common for surgeons to instead use spinal anesthesia. This method allows your surgeon to make you numb, generally from the waist down, but without putting you to sleep. You may be given a sedative, but you'll remain awake, so you don't have to be worried about not waking up after surgery.

For all but the most minor of Achilles tendon tears, surgery is usually the best option. Hopefully the information above has reassured you that this is a good choice, but a place like Affinity Health Group can give you more.