I'm now 14 weeks post-op and I was eager to hear the news that I was finally able to take these casts off my feet. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I took my January X-Rays and sent them to Dr. Wu. In my January X-Rays, I had noticed a slight widening of the spaces between the two metatarsal bones and this was confirmed by Dr. Wu. He did re-assure me that I am still progressing well and the slight widening is normal for most patients and is due to the sutures eroding the bones. The sutures can erode the bone a little, when I walk and put weight on my feet. I believe this could also be due to the toe exercises I do as I would assume that can cause the sutures to "rub against" my bone as well. But I cannot confirm this and it is my assumption.
Dr. Wu explained that I am still within the normal range of 6-8 degrees. When he performs the surgery, he tends to over-correct the angle in anticipation of changes in the angle during the healing process. I have placed pictures of my Pre-op, early Post-Op, and January X-Rays below. You can see that the space between my metatarsal bones was 12.0/12.8 pre-surgery, 3.5/2.1 early post surgery, and now 5.4/3.5 degrees after 3 months. An abnormal level of spacing is >9 degrees so lets hope I don't get there again. As a patient, there is always a tiny fear that I am part of the 1% where the surgery does not work for me. But if Dr. Wu says this is normal, I have to ignore that fear and trust in the process.
To be on the safe side, Dr. Wu would like me to continue wearing these casts for another 10 days (so about a total of 3.5 months). Since I am not in Hong Kong for him to see me in person, he is being more cautious and would like to see another X-Ray in 10 days. He cannot determine whether the recent widening was due to suture loosening or slight delay in ligament formation. Hopefully, everything will look more stable in my next X-Ray. I have been diligently walking slowly and walking as little steps as possible. I don't think I even walk 3,000 steps a day as my casts are still quite secure on my feet. The casts have not loosened much and I have not needed to place a thin sock underneath to ensure the cast is still secure. I think I'm as compliant with the process as I can be, so I am hoping that is enough.
For now, I will keep using tools to help me stay off my feet and get around safely and fairly quickly. The picture of me below is when I went shopping at Costco. They have these huge electric chairs for disabled people to use. It was fun driving this around to do some much needed shopping. I haven't been grocery shopping or any shopping in a few months so this was nice.
One last note before I sign off, Dr. Fellner's website now has a link to my blog! :-) He will be starting his operations some time in the middle of 2016. You don't need to travel all the way to Hong Kong to get this type of surgery performed. The syndesmosis procedure will finally be available here in the U.S. Take a look at his website for more information.
http://www.bunioncenternyc.com/a-patients-story.html
I hope to update my blog again in a couple weeks, if not less. Happy Chinese New Year to all!
Hello again to everyone reading this blog!
As of today, I am technically 3 months post-op (woo-hoo)! I don't have to take X-Rays for another couple weeks, so I'm anxious to see the progress after those are taken. This post will be quite short as I don't have anything new to report. My feet are still doing well and my toe flexibility continues to improve over time. I am finding different ways to stretch my toes so as to test my flexibility. For example if I am on my knees, I place my toes perpendicular to the ground (as if I'm going into a plank position) and I gently bend the toes to see how far they can flex. Ideally, when everything is healed, my toes should be able to support my body weight, but for now, they are still not strong enough so I don't put much weight on them. Also, if I am sitting on a chair, I try to stretch my toes on top of the chair base/legs. I am hoping it somewhat helps with the flexibility.
I do feel my feet are stronger as it is becoming much easier to walk. Not as many little muscle aches and ALMOST feels like my feet are back to normal. This is the time period Dr. Wu warned me about, though. People often make a mistake, assuming they can resume normal walking speed because the feet feel fine. But walking too fast can still cause problems so I have to keep telling, and forcing myself to walk slow. It is very hard to walk slow, but I think about the time and money I have already put into this surgery. I definitely want to make sure I heal well.
Since I still cannot wet my feet, I continue to use wet wipes to clean them every night. That seems to be working very well. The shower covers are still very usable and should last until my casts can be removed.
That is all I have for now. Please feel free to ask me any questions through the "Comments" section, if people have any. I hope to post again in a couple weeks.
