Elevated toes after bunion surgery

Best wishes

My big toe was elevatd. I think this is due to the im pact of the surgery as it is after quite invasive and there are nerves and tendons which will no doubt get disturberd during the surgery. I also had a hammertoe corrected at the same time as my bunion and on the same foot and this too is slightly elevated. However, this is mainly due to the fact that the surgery involved fusing the bones of the hammertoe and it now does not bend which is exactly what I expected. My consultant told me that ifthe hammertoe isn't corrected sufficiently it can just flop downwards and so the preferred option is to prevent this by fusing the bones in the toe. But, ou haven't had a hammertoe done. Anyway back to the bunion toe and the elevation ad swelling. It will improve. Well, mine has And I'm now almost 7 months post surgery. So, if I was you I wouldn't be alarmed as the swelling will definitely reduce as time goes along and the 'sausage' appearance of the bunion and other neighbouring toes will gradually return to normal. You may also experience some discomfort around 16 weeks post surgery in other parts of your foot. I went through an uncomfortable week around this tie when the top of my foot from my little toe and the one next to it was ver painful and I was icing it and massaging it with  ibuprofen gel. I realised that as I was regaining my ability to walk my foot was now having to do a lot of work after being encased in bandages for 8 weeks. The tendons and ligaments were suffering and I did panic a bit thinking that either I'd done something to aggravate the healing or, somethingsinister had happened. Thankfully, it all settled down and the pain/discomfort disappeared. So, just be aware that once you start to become more mobile you may encounter the unexpected. My toes are still a little swollen  months on. But this is reducing satisfactorily. If I'm on my feet too long and the foot becomes tired then it still swells slightly. We're getting there though. Hang on in there. I'm sure you're not turning into a mutant!

Gillian

Another thing I meant to mention to you in my last reply is that I had quite significant pain in the ball of my foot under the bunion toe at around 4 months post surgery. I mentioned this to my consultant and he explained that this was very likely connected to the Sesamoid bones of which there are 2 which sit under the big toe. When a bunion develops and the toe is gradually pushed out of alignment it does not sit over the Sesamoid bones as it ought to do. Followng bunion correction surgery when  the big toe is straightened it then take a while for it to sit over the Sesamoid bones and this may cause inflamation.  found it quite painful to the point where I was beginning to feel that all the good progress I was making was going pear shaped. However, I massaged the ball beneath my big to quite vigorously every day -  althoug the degree of the pain tended to vary day to day. After about 3 weeks of massaging everything seems to have settled down and the pain has disappeared. So, I am assuming that the big toe now sits whereit should once again which is overlying the Sesamoid bones.

Gillian