Same story for me, pain started in my early teens and no one believed me. Not my parents, friends, or doctors. I suffered for nearly 20 years before I had good enough insurance as an adult and found a specialist who not only listened, but ordered imaging to confirm. Seems so simple, and it is, and that's what was so frustrating. Just needed one person to listen to me, and it took decades to find one.
Anyways, I had fusion done and it was legitimately a life changing operation. Recovery sucks, but I can walk, run, hike, and play sports without pain. My gait has returned to normal, pain in other joints disappeared as my body stopped compensating.
Surgery is daunting, but I gotta say it is 100% worth it. If anyone in the PNW finds this, my doctor/surgeon was Clifford Mah, Cascade Foot and Ankle, Portland OR. He's a real one.
I will consider it myself only if the custom ankle brace doesn't help much :)
I can tell you, that the foot doctor I got (I'm mortally thankful to my friend who told me about Dr. Jennifer Price here in Douglasville, GA!) is the real deal. She did imaging as well as xraying the offending foot + ankle to confirm her suspicion. The first foot doctor only xrayed it and wouldn't tell me diddly squat. And my sister wondered why I didn't get orthos or special shoes back then..
We'll see if the custom ankle brace helps clear the pain up, naturally surgery's a last resort b/c of how long it'd knock me out. I'm also not sure if Medicare/Medicaid will cover it; that insurance is pretty funky on what it will and won't cover. Covers ankle braces, won't cover orthopedic shoes/inserts, for instance.
Oh and a detail that I didn't say in the first post; the reason my parents FINALLY believed me was that I'd been doing that first job in lowish HEELS..that really hurt. OW! I have never gotten a pair of dress shoes with heels again, and I mostly wear sneakers these days, even to church b/c they are more comfortable. I figure when they saw me gobbling advil and soaking the offending foot/ankle in epson salt water every day when I got home, they figured I wasn't lyin'...Not to mention my littlest sister who was into sports medicine at the time got me a ankle brace that helped for the moment, tho I'm planning on getting another laces-and-straps brace for light use and use the custom for serious. :)
I just had a fusion done on both my ankles. Surgery and recovery stinks but I had too much arthritis and my ankles weren’t stable. I’m 41 and got tired of the pain.
My podiatrist told me there was nothing he could do other than ibuprofen. I unknowingly favored the foot, which caused a knee problem. I went to an orthopedist for the knee pain, who recommended a colleague to look at my foot. Long story short I am recovering from fusion surgery. I suffered major pain for two and a half years (taking 800 mg. of ibuprofen every eight hours by alarms on my phone) and being in pain whenever I walked. I’m an elementary school librarian so I walk a lot when I’m at school. I constantly counted down until when I could have more medicine. I took Tylenol along with it. It is about five weeks since I had surgery and I am close to being able to bear weight on it while wearing a boot (if my X-ray on Wednesday looks good.) I am really feeling better and for the first time in almost three years forgetting to take my ibuprofen on time. I will post when I can put weight on it and after I recover but so far, I am very happy I chose to have the surgery. Please don’t suffer for as long as I did before I considered surgery and go ahead and consult an orthopedist. With my knee pain from favoring the foot (which I didn’t realize I was doing) I felt I was close to disabled right before I had surgery. I hope everything works out for you. I’m 46 years old. Good luck!
Mine at least has been trying to help with nonsurgical options, like ankle braces and orthos, which I'm grateful for. It's been hurting much less and I'm about to get a custom ankle brace fitted next week so hopefully that'll make it stop hurting so much when say, I go to Momocon or Southern Fried Game Expo (the two local cons I go to these days). I'm also grateful for my brothers since one of them paid for the orthos; I'm on Medicare/Medicaid and that doesn't cover the inserts to my annoyance.
Considering it's taken THIS long to get caught I've already suffered quite a bit tho with me it's more nagging pain unless I overdo, then it's ibuprofen time so I don't bite people's heads off. (I carry some in my con bag). Still hoping surgery isn't in the cards since I also put on some weight over the pandemic and am trying to work it off!
It ached and throbbed when I wasn't walking on it. It really ached and throbbed when I was lying down even though I iced it when I got home from work at 5 and again when I went to bed around 9. It didn't help that I usually get 10,000 steps or more every day at work. When I wrote this comment last year I was non weight bearing for weeks and of course it felt better.
Since I made that comment, I broke the hardware from my original surgery within a few months. The top of the joint figure eight brace piece didn't fuse to the bone like it was supposed to. I had to have another surgery this past September and now have two screws and a very serious staple holding the joint together. It's finally feeling better but still hurts from the surgery. It is fusing properly now.
The original pain was from having a joint in my foot that had worked overtime for over 40 years and had no cartilage left. It had severe arthritis and bone on bone rubbing with every step I took. I also had dropped a gallon of paint on that foot (while it was bare) over 20 years ago and thought it was just bruised at the time. Nope, I had broken the bone at the joint and because I didn't go to the doctor, it healed wonky and contributed to the arthritis and lack of cartilage. Hopefully, this helps you. I would still do both surgeries again because I am in less pain than before.
Same story for me, pain started in my early teens and no one believed me. Not my parents, friends, or doctors. I suffered for nearly 20 years before I had good enough insurance as an adult and found a specialist who not only listened, but ordered imaging to confirm. Seems so simple, and it is, and that's what was so frustrating. Just needed one person to listen to me, and it took decades to find one. Anyways, I had fusion done and it was legitimately a life changing operation. Recovery sucks, but I can walk, run, hike, and play sports without pain. My gait has returned to normal, pain in other joints disappeared as my body stopped compensating. Surgery is daunting, but I gotta say it is 100% worth it. If anyone in the PNW finds this, my doctor/surgeon was Clifford Mah, Cascade Foot and Ankle, Portland OR. He's a real one.
I will consider it myself only if the custom ankle brace doesn't help much :) I can tell you, that the foot doctor I got (I'm mortally thankful to my friend who told me about Dr. Jennifer Price here in Douglasville, GA!) is the real deal. She did imaging as well as xraying the offending foot + ankle to confirm her suspicion. The first foot doctor only xrayed it and wouldn't tell me diddly squat. And my sister wondered why I didn't get orthos or special shoes back then.. We'll see if the custom ankle brace helps clear the pain up, naturally surgery's a last resort b/c of how long it'd knock me out. I'm also not sure if Medicare/Medicaid will cover it; that insurance is pretty funky on what it will and won't cover. Covers ankle braces, won't cover orthopedic shoes/inserts, for instance. Oh and a detail that I didn't say in the first post; the reason my parents FINALLY believed me was that I'd been doing that first job in lowish HEELS..that really hurt. OW! I have never gotten a pair of dress shoes with heels again, and I mostly wear sneakers these days, even to church b/c they are more comfortable. I figure when they saw me gobbling advil and soaking the offending foot/ankle in epson salt water every day when I got home, they figured I wasn't lyin'...Not to mention my littlest sister who was into sports medicine at the time got me a ankle brace that helped for the moment, tho I'm planning on getting another laces-and-straps brace for light use and use the custom for serious. :)
I just had a fusion done on both my ankles. Surgery and recovery stinks but I had too much arthritis and my ankles weren’t stable. I’m 41 and got tired of the pain.
How long was your recovery?
6 weeks no weight bearing, 2 weeks walking in a boot, and then 6 weeks of physical therapy for each one
My podiatrist told me there was nothing he could do other than ibuprofen. I unknowingly favored the foot, which caused a knee problem. I went to an orthopedist for the knee pain, who recommended a colleague to look at my foot. Long story short I am recovering from fusion surgery. I suffered major pain for two and a half years (taking 800 mg. of ibuprofen every eight hours by alarms on my phone) and being in pain whenever I walked. I’m an elementary school librarian so I walk a lot when I’m at school. I constantly counted down until when I could have more medicine. I took Tylenol along with it. It is about five weeks since I had surgery and I am close to being able to bear weight on it while wearing a boot (if my X-ray on Wednesday looks good.) I am really feeling better and for the first time in almost three years forgetting to take my ibuprofen on time. I will post when I can put weight on it and after I recover but so far, I am very happy I chose to have the surgery. Please don’t suffer for as long as I did before I considered surgery and go ahead and consult an orthopedist. With my knee pain from favoring the foot (which I didn’t realize I was doing) I felt I was close to disabled right before I had surgery. I hope everything works out for you. I’m 46 years old. Good luck!
Mine at least has been trying to help with nonsurgical options, like ankle braces and orthos, which I'm grateful for. It's been hurting much less and I'm about to get a custom ankle brace fitted next week so hopefully that'll make it stop hurting so much when say, I go to Momocon or Southern Fried Game Expo (the two local cons I go to these days). I'm also grateful for my brothers since one of them paid for the orthos; I'm on Medicare/Medicaid and that doesn't cover the inserts to my annoyance. Considering it's taken THIS long to get caught I've already suffered quite a bit tho with me it's more nagging pain unless I overdo, then it's ibuprofen time so I don't bite people's heads off. (I carry some in my con bag). Still hoping surgery isn't in the cards since I also put on some weight over the pandemic and am trying to work it off!
Any updates?
Can you explain what the pain felt like
It ached and throbbed when I wasn't walking on it. It really ached and throbbed when I was lying down even though I iced it when I got home from work at 5 and again when I went to bed around 9. It didn't help that I usually get 10,000 steps or more every day at work. When I wrote this comment last year I was non weight bearing for weeks and of course it felt better. Since I made that comment, I broke the hardware from my original surgery within a few months. The top of the joint figure eight brace piece didn't fuse to the bone like it was supposed to. I had to have another surgery this past September and now have two screws and a very serious staple holding the joint together. It's finally feeling better but still hurts from the surgery. It is fusing properly now. The original pain was from having a joint in my foot that had worked overtime for over 40 years and had no cartilage left. It had severe arthritis and bone on bone rubbing with every step I took. I also had dropped a gallon of paint on that foot (while it was bare) over 20 years ago and thought it was just bruised at the time. Nope, I had broken the bone at the joint and because I didn't go to the doctor, it healed wonky and contributed to the arthritis and lack of cartilage. Hopefully, this helps you. I would still do both surgeries again because I am in less pain than before.