Huge pressure in foot after bunion surgery

Hi Jacqueline

You were told that you have a pain syndrome, when you don't really have pain, and for that diagnosis, you were offered no treatment?  That doesn't make sense.

Everyone heals differently, at a different rate, and 8 weeks is still early days.  I think at 8 weeks, my situation was about the same as yours and my surgeon told me it was "failure to heal."  I went to my GP, who had coincidentally had had a similar surgery at the same time as I did, and he was healing even more slowly than I was.  He said that I was slow to heal, but by no means failing to heal. 

My surgery was 6 months ago. I still have swelling on the ball of my foot and a bit on the top of my foot, just above the toes that had surgery, but by three months, I was able to walk pretty normally, and the exploding foot sensation was gone. 

I have a different situation in that my third and fourth toes now sit underneath my second toe, and I will need a bit of very minor surgery to release tendons of those toes, when my swelling eventually goes away.  So at six months, I am taping three toes together to get them out of the way of the first two toes that are now in the proper position.  Otherwise, I would step on them.  I also use a gel spacer between the second and third toe.  It's inconvenient and uncomfortable, but the two toes that had the surgery are straight and they no longer hurt.  I can walk as much as I want in trainers.

My surgeon has given me several injections of marcaine to bring blood to the area to reduce the swelling, and each shot has helped a bit.  I am going an acupuncturist who is a medical doctor at the UCLA Center for East/West Medicine, and acupuncture has helped the swelling somewhat.  I have tried the red meat diet recommended by my surgeon, which did not help, and now I am giving up red meat, as recommended by the East/West doctor, and that hasn't helped either.  For me, it looks like healing will be a slow process, but I do see improvement.  

You may have delayed your progress somewhat  by not elevating and icing your foot from Day 1.  Doctors are not good about telling us about aftercare  I had to learn what my doctor meant by "ice and elevate" from Youtube videos, made by other people's doctors and other patients.  Did you know that you are supposed to elevate your foot above the level of your heart?

Jacqueline, you will persevere and your foot will heal.  Please tell us about your progress.

Hi Kathy, I’m glad to hear that you have recovered from your surgery. Poor Jacqueline has really gone thru it, as I read all of these posts I’m thinking that some of the Dr.’s are quacks. If if sounds weird don’t do it. There are websites that give good information on recovery. I’m just four weeks post op and have two screws in my long toe next to the big toe, a plate and 4 screws in my big toe. The screws in my second toe burn every once in awhile and the big toe hurts most of the time. I fell off  of my scooter about six hours after my surgery when I was going to the bathroom. It was a tight area and I couldn’t get it turned around so I tried to lift it and I ended up on the floor. I  tore my rotator cuff and in the x-ray they noticed I had bone spurs from an earlier injury, and the ball joint was actually out of the socket because it been pushed out by the bone spurs. I  wanted to wait until my foot had healed more before I have surgery on my shoulder but I can’t stand the pain any longer and I can’t even move my arm without being in agony and I haven’t slept in a month more than two hours at a time. Sleep is a very important thing to be getting us when your body heals so I am scheduled for surgery in four days at that time my foot will be five weeks postop and it still hurts all the time it’s swollen and purple today. 

 After reading all of these posts I am feeling better about myself falling off my knee scooter it sounds like most people I’ve talk to and most people on here I’ll fill up their scooter so dangerous things and I was hurt severely.  I also have a hairline fracture in my humorous where my arm hit my entertainment center on impact. I’m 62 and I feel like I’m a lot older right now. 

 I figure by Christmas time I should be all healed. By not having a shoe that is the same height as my walking cast, both of my hips have started to hurt real bad so I’ll probably have to have those replaced down the road sometime!! 😫🤕🤒😷

I’m still icing my foot several times a day, but I walk on my heal cuz I’m afraid of the scooter plus it’s very hard to use with one hand. I’ve been taking ibuprofen 800’s every 8-12 hours. As prescribed by my Dr. I’ve never heard of it causing bone problems. I take a lot of calcium plus lots of other supplements including collagen that helps heal the skin. I’m terrified of this shoulder surgery because it was hard enough to get friends to come in and help out post foot surgery. Now 5 weeks later I need to call on favors again. It’s just such s tough time of year cuz most everyone is gone on they’re family vacations. I’m praying everything turn out ok. 

Thanks to everyone on this site for the good advise and I hope Jacqueline is healing well. I’ll try to remember to come back after my shoulder surgery next week and also to let you know what my Podiatrist says about my recovery on my foot at my 5 week check up on Monday. Thanks for listening.       🤕💗  Kat

Hi Kat

What a nightmare you are having.  I hope you manage to get everything sorted with your arm and shoulder.

I have been having intensive physio which is helping a little. One of my biggest problems has been that my big toe has raised slightly as the tissues have healed an contracted.  Apparently I should have had a toe splint on from week two but this did not happen and I wasn't actually given one until sometime in weeks 6-8.  The Consultant was not happy.  I have to continue with the physio and, if in a year's time following surgery the joint capsule is still too tight I will need a small procedure to open it up and release the joint.  The lovely hot weather we've been having here has certainly not helped with the swelling.  Happy days!

I do think these sites should be promoted more as they are real life experiences and Doctors all seem to give different advice.

Jacqueline x

That must be painful also!!

The pain I’ve been going through with this surgery is horrible. It started to feel better about 6 days ago, and all of a sudden I’m getting sharp burning pains where the screws and plate is. It’s awful. It feels like someone is holding a match to those areas. Have you experienced pain like that. Now I’m also having dull pains in my calf. They come and go. I’m hoping it’s not a blood clot. 

The doctors have tried to give me blood thinners, especially after my strokes but they’ve all made me violently ill. So I continue to take a 325 mg of aspirin. I was such a healthy person before 2012 and now I feel as if I’m falling apart!

I just want to be my healthy self again!

I thought, naively, that bunion surgery was going to be a piece of cake! It’s turning out to be my worst nightmare!!

Now because of it, I get to have my shoulder reconstructed and I hope it turns out well, but my hips are both hurting now from the uneven walking. 

I hope you’re doing well today. 

Boy, Kathryn, you are really going through a lot!  I am sorry I did not respond to you sooner, but we were on vacation.  If you have already had your shoulder surgery, please tell me how you are doing. 

I bought a knee scooter myself, and then decided it was not safe, so I never used it.

I hope this will be somewhat encouraging:  Since my foot is still swollen after eight months, I asked my podiatrist what would happen if I needed any other kind of surgery in the future.  He said that surgery of the foot is the most difficult to heal because: 1. Feet receive less blood flow than other parts of the body, being furthest from your heart.  2. When you have surgery elsewhere, you do not walk on the surgical site, which makes healing difficult, and 3.  The blood vessels in your toes are quite small. For those reasons, he said that although my foot is not healing as quickly as it should, he thought I would do fine with any other kind of surgery.

Now that I have communicated with a lot of people who have had bunion surgery, I have to agree that a lot of foot surgeons don't know what they are doing.  Is my doctor one of those?  I'm not sure.  Last month, I returned to the spa where I get pedicures, and the owner asked me how my surgery had worked out.  She was not at all surprised that I had lingering issues.  She said that most of her customers have bunionectomies by a certain age, and that eighty percent of her customers are unhappy with the results.  She herself has painful bunions, but will not have surgery because of what she has seen. 

Like you, I am 62 years old.  By our age almost everyone has several health issues going at any one time.  I found this site because I have Sjogren's syndrome, and only after having problems with my foot surgery did I think to look here for advice about bunion issues.

All we can do is keep trying.  Most things get better eventually.  My healing seems to be at a standstill, eight months after surgery, and sometimes I feel like I will never be able to have the tendons released on my third and fourth toes. All I can do is wait and see.

It's good to be able to discuss these problems with people who have similar issues.  Please tell me how you are doing, when you are well enough to write.  I will be thinking of you.

Kathy

Hi Jacqueline,

The old raised big toe!  I have that too, despite my doctor's advice to step on my entire first two toes and crunch it down with my other foot as often as possible.  My doctor advised against any physical therapy at all, beyond this stepping on myself and standing on tip-toe several times a day. 

I did not notice your post to me until today, so I would like to hear what your doctor said about the pain you were having.  Are you having it still?  Are you back to work? 

My foot is still swollen on top, as is the ball of my foot, despite acupuncture, so I am not able to have the tendons released on my third and fourth toes, which I still have to tape to my pinky toe, which is stable and in the correct position.  All this taping causes burning, and I am having new pain at the injection sites.  Even with the toes taped, I still step on the crooked third and fourth toes with every stop.  I will go back to my podiatrist in a week, and he will be unhappy with my lack of healing, and act as if it is my fault.  At some point, I will get a second opinion.  This has been going on for eight months now.  But I am not sure if I can trust a second opinion.  If you read my reply to Kathryn above, you know that my pedicurist says hardly any of her customers get the result they hoped for with bunion surgery.  I sure hope she is wrong!

Please tell me how things are progressing.  I hope you are well.

Kathy

Hi Kathy

I am not back at work yet and dreading it as I am a secretary doing a lot of audio typing so my feet have to be on the floor pretty much stationary for most of the day. This will mean lots of blood pooling and swelling unless something changes. The physio advised cardio to get my circulation working so I am going to sign up at the gym tomorrow to get on a cross trainer for a low impact workout. Hopefully it will help. I saw the Consultant again and he was not happy that I hadn't been given the toe splint at 2 weeks. If things don't improve over the next 9 months he will consider capsule release which I have been told is a very small procedure under local anaesthetic.

As things are at the moment I am trying to consciously walk through my toe when walking and doing my exercises. It is very painful every step and I can't deny I'm not worried that it won't improve. I checked on my discharge summary and it clearly says I should have had a toe splint fitted at week two so I have contacted the hospital and logged a complaint. Too late for me but I need to raise awareness of the need for the discharge summaries to be read for other patients.

It just depends who you know with regards to results. I don't know of anyone else who has had problems post surgery (apart now from you guys on here) and I'm feeling very unlucky. I am hoping to have another chat with the Consultant soon as I'm trying to work with management and Occupational Health to put in place a phased return to work in September.

The problems you are having seem in some ways far worse than mine and I really feel for you. I hope things do start to improve for you soon. It's certainly been a long time.

Jacqueline

Hi Jacqueline.

Well, bummer.  I thought you would be well by now.  When you get a chance, tell me about that capsule release procedure.

If I could have the tendons released (cut) on my third and fourth toes, they would go into the proper position, and everything would be fine, more or less.  This will eventually be done in the doctor's office with local anesthetic.  It's only a minor amount of swelling that prevents my doctor from releasing those tendons, but I agree that if my original surgery isn't quite healed, it's not safe to cut any more.  I do think it is just a matter of waiting, but darn, it has been a long wait already.

Stay patient.  We will both get there eventually.

Kathy