For the last five months my Achilles tendons have been very tender and painful when I walk and also during periods of inactivity i.e when driving they seize up a little. I do a lot of walking and it doesn’t seem to help. They even hurt when waking from sleep.

Hi Simon Sounds as if you’ve got some really clinically, classic signs of a tendon overload. You are simply putting too much, uncontrolled load through your tendons. The more you do (walking) the more they hurt. The more you compress (driving – pointing your toes) the more they hurt. They’ll hurt when you suddenly load them after a period of under loading (sleeping). You need to establish why, stop doing that, then allow you tendons to be gradually and respectfully loaded back to normality. It’ll take a good few months. There are plenty of really good options out there to ensure full recovery – stretching, however is definitely off the menu, no matter how it makes you feel after. You’ve got an “over” stretch issue and so don’t need any extra “length”…… The Guru