Internal Brace for Chronic Low to Moderate Grade Partial Tears of ATFL and CFL

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I want to share how glad I am to have found this forum with you all. I appreciate all responses.

A few years back I badly sprained my ankle which left me bruised and swollen. I had no idea how to care for a sprained ankle and so I was back at exercising after several weeks and didn't realize what would later come. I continued to have "mini" re-sprains of the ankle until the point when I just had it and said I would be going for an MRI which revealed scarred chronic low to moderate grade partial tears of the ATFL and CFL.

That is when I went to the first surgeon to diagnose me and was told I have hyperlaxity and combined with the chronic partial tears would likely cause instability across my lifetime. On top of that, it has officially come to the point that I had to cut running out of my life altogether because I would respain within minutes. A few months ago I was walking up the street only to be stopped in my tracks by a burning pain so bad that I limped for a week thereafter.

So far I have received multiple opinions: namely, since my way of life has been altered then I should consider surgery. However, I was advised an internal brace combined with a modified brostrom procedure by multiple doctors and similarly told the internal brace stiffens that area so much so that I may need it removed! I was advised also to consider a modified brostom gould in place - however again that area may resprain due to hyperlaxity. Apparently there are pros to doing the internal brace, but there are also similar benefits to the alternative using gould - hyperlaxity was confirmed by multiple surgeons and there is a fear of continuing to have laxity using the gould procedure (using a tendon harvest).

PLEASE kindly share your experiences with the internal brace or other modified brostrom procedure. Did the stiffness occur, did it go away? I would like to hear from actual patients vs. doctors. I'm terrified of making the wrong decision because my ankle is well enough to walk on as of now, and I wouldn't want to go with something that will eventually remove my ability to walk.

Thank you!

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