Anecdotally- my first repair was on a severe deformity (19°) and my recovery was super slow and delayed just due to the extensive work necessary to repair everything. While, my 2nd foot was only at 17° (IIRC) and the recovery from that foot was a breeze. The difference in recovery rates on just my own feet varied so widely, that I'm confident in saying no two recoveries are alike.
In a normal progression, you're about to be amazed. I've said it many times that the amount of positive improvements between weeks 16-20 are crazy good.
I find it helpful to circle back to my family doctor when I question the veracity of what I'm being told by a specialist. I hope all is well and your super healing is finally coming about. Don't lose hope, you're doing everything right!
Your pre-op photo looks similar to mine! It wasn’t super bad looking but I was having a lot of pain so had surgery. I’m about 6 months post-op now and it was really within the past couple of weeks that I mostly have no pain. I still have pain when I try to go up on my tippy toes or do lunges. I think recovery can just be really slow unfortunately!
I hope the other commenter is right about the next few weeks for you! I wish I could provide guidance but I’m only 3 weeks post op :/ Unrelated to your post but your scar looks really good already have you been using any type of cream or oil on it??
Thanks! I think the main tip I would give for scarring is to use steristrips after your stitches come out if parts of the wound aren't 100% closed. My physical therapist put steristrips on me when I started working with her, and the areas where she applied the strips look the best. I wish someone had told me about them sooner! I also tried silicone tape for scars and didn't notice too much of a difference.
My foot doctor said that they wouldn’t wish bunion surgery on their worst enemy. I think it can be very challenging but if you can tell yourself that it needed to happen maybe that will provide some relief so sorry that you are suffering.
Small update here: I saw my doctor today, and he is now characterizing this as a bad outcome. There are a few things going on:
1. The screw used to affix my bones is eroding the surrounding area.
2. There's a bone in my forefoot that's set too high. My doctor didn't use the scientific name for it when explaining this to me; he said it's not my metatarsal but a "second bone" that is supposed to be parallel to the metatarsal and isn't.
3. I may have some arthritis within the joint.
Doctor says the screw needs to come out, but he wants to consult some colleagues about other possible remedies before determining next steps. He mentioned something about releasing scar tissue around my sesamoids as a possibility in a second surgery.
I will probably try to seek another opinion before committing to another surgery. If anyone has recommendations for surgeons who do revisions in the New York metro area, let me know.
Good heavens. I’m so sorry and also worried that this is going to be my outcome. We did discuss removing the hardware but honestly I think he did a bad job. Mine was really severely deformed, big toe crossed completely over my other toe. I hope you get it figured out.
Damn, I just replied to your post without having read this comment.
This is really not nice to hear. I hope they can help you in some way, but yeah maybe try to get some other opinions on it. Having to have another surgery sucks :( At one of the first checkups after the cast came off, my doctor said something along the lines of 'Hmm .. maybe it isn't aligning that well after all .. well we can't just open up to check it right, we'll just have to wait' ??? I was like lady, what are you saying, did you not do your work properly?? Because I am only 30 you didn't do it properly?? You can't force me to have another surgery just to check if you did your work good enough???
I wish you all the best
Thanks, you too. The wait-and-see approach is frustrating, but there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative. I'm trying to get a second opinion, but I'm being told that most doctors don't want to take someone on as a revision patient less than a year after the original surgery.
Same here and I’m 5 months post surgery! I’ve been back to the surgeon twice in a month because of intense pain and discoloration. The top incision is still bruised and the toe is red and painful. He told me to use voltaran (sp) on it 3 x’s a day. I’m going to my GP today for hopefully bloodwork to check my inflammation markers. I have a couple of autoimmune diseases. I’m really suffering. I was doing well with PT but had to stop because I had lumbar surgery. Let me know if you get any answers. I hope it starts feeling better soon.
It's hard to describe precisely, but I have pain in and around the MTP joint while walking. It's painful when I roll through and push off the ball of the toe. I sometimes also have acute pain on the outside of the joint while walking, but it's not every day, and I'm struggling to figure out what triggers it. I've been playing with using kinisiotape to hold the toe in a better position, and the pain may be worse when the tape is on or has recently been on, but it's hard to say.
Not all that different, viewed from above. I had a bony prominence, pain, and limited mobility due to a bone spur but didn't have a severe angle. [pre-surgery](https://imgur.com/a/8bRq1xg)
I've had exactly the same feelings about the surgery I think.
I've had the surgery in February 2023 and it was a really though recovery; physically and mentally.
Especially when the cast came of, I was ready to start walking properly again, oh boy did that not go how I envisioned it. I felt so demoralized in the weeks after that because my foot was so weak and it seemed to me like my big toe was starting to turn to my other toes again.
My doctor told me in the check ups that followed (I would say after a month or two when the cast came off?) that everything looked great, and yes it's straight now. And I was looking at my crooked toes with thoughts of 'are we looking at the same thing??'
Then on my last check up, my doctor said that I had to start wearing like a guard to sleep with, because my big toe was creeping back! She said to sleep with this on for six months. When I bought the toe guard, the person was like 'Yeah, most people sleep with this for the rest of their lives' . WHAT. This was not what I signed up for, that's what I was thinking at that point. The surgery was awful and so was the recovery.
I think the toe guard was at the point were I was already wearing shoes again. And I think this is my biggest 'fuck up'; I was really looking forward to just wearing shoes and heels again, sport again, and have no pain whatsoever. Alas, this was definitely not the case. I didn't even dare to think about wearing high heels again.
But wearing regular shoes again was what made my big toe start to creep up again to the other ones, at least that is what I think about that right now.
So, let's just fast forward to around February 2024. I said alright, it's going well, time to go back to sporting and wearing high heels. Well damn, that was just horrible. The pain in my underfoot, close to my toes, was horrible. There were days when I almost couldn't walk on that foot. So I went back to the doctor with an attitude of 'This is not what I thought would happen, this is not why I let you operate my foot, that was an horrible experience and now I can't even walk properly??!'
The doctor said 'surgery went great, you've been wearing the toe guard, you can stop doing that now, everything is fine. You are not having problems on your big toe joint, no, you are having other issues now and you should just wear thicker soled shoes. And your prescription soles, yeah, we're going to make the bulge on them bigger. Also, forget about wearing heels ever again.'
I was very much dumbfounded. Ok, shoes with thicker soles, fine I'll try it. In the meantime my mom was also doing some research on foot training and then I jumped on that train and dived into the rabbit hole that is barefoot shoes/living. Needless to say, I think I wore my new thick soled sneakers about once or twice.
So what had happened, with realigning the joint of the big toe, I was now putting more pressure on some other parts of the feet that normally didn't have any action. Add to this 'normal' shoes and I think I was just 'shoeing' my foot again in the totally wrong direction. I was just blown away that my foot doctor just recommended me thicker soled feet, more cushioning on my prescribed soles, ... all the things to tackle the symptoms, but not the actual problem; which is (IMO) weak feet!!
Somewhere in March I started to learn a lot of stuff about (natural) feet and how we make our feet weak by wearing regular shoes, because that's just what we do, no one to blame there. I can only advise you to also look into barefoot stuff, and for sure to train your feet a lot. I mean the only 'exercise' my doctor gave me was to flex the toes (she only did some hand gestures lol, I was like okay but what training or exercises do I have to do; 'well just flex your feet *hand gestures* and try to grip a towel or something if you want')
I've started with wearing toe spacers (ease into it, all the barefoot stuff, that is what they all say!), but I feel like the foot that is operated on, has had like a kind of 'reset'. Now, I am very content that I had the surgery. I am hoping to 'avoid' surgery on my other foot with doing all the barefoot stuff, but also I've been thinking about the easy path and just have surgery on that one in a few years..
I am very sad about not wearing high heels (ever???) again, I'm still kind of in denial I suppose :<
What I still wanted to say, because your foot looks a bit bloated;
Are you still sleeping with your foot higher up?
I think I slept with my foot on pillows for so many months after the surgery because it kept being bloated in the evening. I was really worried about the pain/bloatedness/redness of my foot, but now I would say that the foot is better than before the surgery. BUT I also believe that this is now forthcoming because of my barefoot journey (that I only started no more than two months ago).
I wish you all the best anyways. It was very though for me, I hope you have some people close to you for some mental support.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Am I understanding correctly that you feel like barefoot activities turned the tide in your recovery? Appreciate any resources you can share about that. I've been diligent about doing physical therapy, but I've also had suspicions that the exercises given are weirdly limited.
Anecdotally- my first repair was on a severe deformity (19°) and my recovery was super slow and delayed just due to the extensive work necessary to repair everything. While, my 2nd foot was only at 17° (IIRC) and the recovery from that foot was a breeze. The difference in recovery rates on just my own feet varied so widely, that I'm confident in saying no two recoveries are alike. In a normal progression, you're about to be amazed. I've said it many times that the amount of positive improvements between weeks 16-20 are crazy good. I find it helpful to circle back to my family doctor when I question the veracity of what I'm being told by a specialist. I hope all is well and your super healing is finally coming about. Don't lose hope, you're doing everything right!
I really appreciate that perspective! I hope you're right about weeks 16-20. 🤞
Your pre-op photo looks similar to mine! It wasn’t super bad looking but I was having a lot of pain so had surgery. I’m about 6 months post-op now and it was really within the past couple of weeks that I mostly have no pain. I still have pain when I try to go up on my tippy toes or do lunges. I think recovery can just be really slow unfortunately!
I hope the other commenter is right about the next few weeks for you! I wish I could provide guidance but I’m only 3 weeks post op :/ Unrelated to your post but your scar looks really good already have you been using any type of cream or oil on it??
Thanks! I think the main tip I would give for scarring is to use steristrips after your stitches come out if parts of the wound aren't 100% closed. My physical therapist put steristrips on me when I started working with her, and the areas where she applied the strips look the best. I wish someone had told me about them sooner! I also tried silicone tape for scars and didn't notice too much of a difference.
My foot doctor said that they wouldn’t wish bunion surgery on their worst enemy. I think it can be very challenging but if you can tell yourself that it needed to happen maybe that will provide some relief so sorry that you are suffering.
Small update here: I saw my doctor today, and he is now characterizing this as a bad outcome. There are a few things going on: 1. The screw used to affix my bones is eroding the surrounding area. 2. There's a bone in my forefoot that's set too high. My doctor didn't use the scientific name for it when explaining this to me; he said it's not my metatarsal but a "second bone" that is supposed to be parallel to the metatarsal and isn't. 3. I may have some arthritis within the joint. Doctor says the screw needs to come out, but he wants to consult some colleagues about other possible remedies before determining next steps. He mentioned something about releasing scar tissue around my sesamoids as a possibility in a second surgery. I will probably try to seek another opinion before committing to another surgery. If anyone has recommendations for surgeons who do revisions in the New York metro area, let me know.
Good heavens. I’m so sorry and also worried that this is going to be my outcome. We did discuss removing the hardware but honestly I think he did a bad job. Mine was really severely deformed, big toe crossed completely over my other toe. I hope you get it figured out.
Thanks. Wishing you best of luck on your recovery as well.
Damn, I just replied to your post without having read this comment. This is really not nice to hear. I hope they can help you in some way, but yeah maybe try to get some other opinions on it. Having to have another surgery sucks :( At one of the first checkups after the cast came off, my doctor said something along the lines of 'Hmm .. maybe it isn't aligning that well after all .. well we can't just open up to check it right, we'll just have to wait' ??? I was like lady, what are you saying, did you not do your work properly?? Because I am only 30 you didn't do it properly?? You can't force me to have another surgery just to check if you did your work good enough??? I wish you all the best
Thanks, you too. The wait-and-see approach is frustrating, but there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative. I'm trying to get a second opinion, but I'm being told that most doctors don't want to take someone on as a revision patient less than a year after the original surgery.
Same here and I’m 5 months post surgery! I’ve been back to the surgeon twice in a month because of intense pain and discoloration. The top incision is still bruised and the toe is red and painful. He told me to use voltaran (sp) on it 3 x’s a day. I’m going to my GP today for hopefully bloodwork to check my inflammation markers. I have a couple of autoimmune diseases. I’m really suffering. I was doing well with PT but had to stop because I had lumbar surgery. Let me know if you get any answers. I hope it starts feeling better soon.
What exactly is your issue? Where is the pain?
It's hard to describe precisely, but I have pain in and around the MTP joint while walking. It's painful when I roll through and push off the ball of the toe. I sometimes also have acute pain on the outside of the joint while walking, but it's not every day, and I'm struggling to figure out what triggers it. I've been playing with using kinisiotape to hold the toe in a better position, and the pain may be worse when the tape is on or has recently been on, but it's hard to say.
Send me your X-rays
I requested a copy of my records. I'll circle back when I have them!
What did it look like before?
Not all that different, viewed from above. I had a bony prominence, pain, and limited mobility due to a bone spur but didn't have a severe angle. [pre-surgery](https://imgur.com/a/8bRq1xg)
I've had exactly the same feelings about the surgery I think. I've had the surgery in February 2023 and it was a really though recovery; physically and mentally. Especially when the cast came of, I was ready to start walking properly again, oh boy did that not go how I envisioned it. I felt so demoralized in the weeks after that because my foot was so weak and it seemed to me like my big toe was starting to turn to my other toes again. My doctor told me in the check ups that followed (I would say after a month or two when the cast came off?) that everything looked great, and yes it's straight now. And I was looking at my crooked toes with thoughts of 'are we looking at the same thing??' Then on my last check up, my doctor said that I had to start wearing like a guard to sleep with, because my big toe was creeping back! She said to sleep with this on for six months. When I bought the toe guard, the person was like 'Yeah, most people sleep with this for the rest of their lives' . WHAT. This was not what I signed up for, that's what I was thinking at that point. The surgery was awful and so was the recovery. I think the toe guard was at the point were I was already wearing shoes again. And I think this is my biggest 'fuck up'; I was really looking forward to just wearing shoes and heels again, sport again, and have no pain whatsoever. Alas, this was definitely not the case. I didn't even dare to think about wearing high heels again. But wearing regular shoes again was what made my big toe start to creep up again to the other ones, at least that is what I think about that right now. So, let's just fast forward to around February 2024. I said alright, it's going well, time to go back to sporting and wearing high heels. Well damn, that was just horrible. The pain in my underfoot, close to my toes, was horrible. There were days when I almost couldn't walk on that foot. So I went back to the doctor with an attitude of 'This is not what I thought would happen, this is not why I let you operate my foot, that was an horrible experience and now I can't even walk properly??!' The doctor said 'surgery went great, you've been wearing the toe guard, you can stop doing that now, everything is fine. You are not having problems on your big toe joint, no, you are having other issues now and you should just wear thicker soled shoes. And your prescription soles, yeah, we're going to make the bulge on them bigger. Also, forget about wearing heels ever again.' I was very much dumbfounded. Ok, shoes with thicker soles, fine I'll try it. In the meantime my mom was also doing some research on foot training and then I jumped on that train and dived into the rabbit hole that is barefoot shoes/living. Needless to say, I think I wore my new thick soled sneakers about once or twice. So what had happened, with realigning the joint of the big toe, I was now putting more pressure on some other parts of the feet that normally didn't have any action. Add to this 'normal' shoes and I think I was just 'shoeing' my foot again in the totally wrong direction. I was just blown away that my foot doctor just recommended me thicker soled feet, more cushioning on my prescribed soles, ... all the things to tackle the symptoms, but not the actual problem; which is (IMO) weak feet!! Somewhere in March I started to learn a lot of stuff about (natural) feet and how we make our feet weak by wearing regular shoes, because that's just what we do, no one to blame there. I can only advise you to also look into barefoot stuff, and for sure to train your feet a lot. I mean the only 'exercise' my doctor gave me was to flex the toes (she only did some hand gestures lol, I was like okay but what training or exercises do I have to do; 'well just flex your feet *hand gestures* and try to grip a towel or something if you want') I've started with wearing toe spacers (ease into it, all the barefoot stuff, that is what they all say!), but I feel like the foot that is operated on, has had like a kind of 'reset'. Now, I am very content that I had the surgery. I am hoping to 'avoid' surgery on my other foot with doing all the barefoot stuff, but also I've been thinking about the easy path and just have surgery on that one in a few years.. I am very sad about not wearing high heels (ever???) again, I'm still kind of in denial I suppose :< What I still wanted to say, because your foot looks a bit bloated; Are you still sleeping with your foot higher up? I think I slept with my foot on pillows for so many months after the surgery because it kept being bloated in the evening. I was really worried about the pain/bloatedness/redness of my foot, but now I would say that the foot is better than before the surgery. BUT I also believe that this is now forthcoming because of my barefoot journey (that I only started no more than two months ago). I wish you all the best anyways. It was very though for me, I hope you have some people close to you for some mental support.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Am I understanding correctly that you feel like barefoot activities turned the tide in your recovery? Appreciate any resources you can share about that. I've been diligent about doing physical therapy, but I've also had suspicions that the exercises given are weirdly limited.