Soleus problems

I haven't personally had this issue myself although I have treated athletes with it.

From my experience it depends on how high or low the injury occurs.  The closer it is to the achilles tendon the longer it seems to take to fully resolve.

I'm not an M.D. but athletes I have seen with the injury are generally told to not stress it for a minimum of five days (mild strain) to significantly longer the greater the degree of the strain is.

As far as other treatment methods.  I personally don't know of many for mild strains.  Most of the athletes are told to R.I.C.E. and take anti inflamatories.  When the initial swelling and pain drop off then it's off to rehab.  I'm sometimes asked to help them work through the issue because of a key race or something similar but I don't recommend doing that as the potential for greater injury is high.

Good luck!

Joshua

I ruptured mine close to 12 weeks ago, diagnosed by MRI. Strained it, ran almost 24 miles 5 days later and then raced fast on it a week after that. It was sore prior, but at 2 miles into the 10K, it popped--literally felt like someone had hit me in the back of the leg. It was only a partial rupture, so my doc advised strengthening and cutting my mileage in half. If it had been fully ruptured, it would have been surgery. Complete healing time was about 9 weeks.

How do you know it's your soleus? You'd probably do good getting it looked at.