Swelling after ankle surgery

Dear Paty

It is early days and there are so many factors involved apart from how good a job your surgeon did.

I think you should be concentrating on good relaxed posture and well balanced movement to start with....speed will come with time.

If in pain ease up and ice the painful areas and try to relax..give your body a chance and use pain relief to keep ahead of your pain.

Good luck

Richard

You'll have good days and bad days. It's depressing and frustrating. Knowing this isn't unusual helps. I'm 5 months out. You'll feel normal again. I don't feel normal yet BUT compared to last month - much much better!!

I'm trying to walk for a few minutes at a time. Just reading what others post gives me hope. The doctor told me the X-ray looked good. I did get a call though on Friday evening that he ordered another X-ray not sure why. I need to call make appointment.

When did you start feeling better?. Glad you feel much better. I guess I need patience.

Don't worry about another X-ray. (I would I'm a worrier!) it may have just been a bit blurry.

I just read your post from 17 hrs ago to molly. I may be wrong but it sounds like you're doing too much. When I was weight bearing after 3 mo NWB it felt so good, I overdid it / walking, standing in the kitchen cooking, etc. things I couldn't do for 3 months. I paid dearly. Took 3 days to recover.

When did I start to feel better? After getting out of the damn boot! But PT has been slow so I still have bad days but fewer. It's hard to not feel sorry for yourself so I have to snap out of it. I'm normally a very optimistic person.

One of the first times I got out to lunch with a friend I was feeling bad because I got so exhausted doing something I always did. Just going to lunch. Kinda angry that it was a chore just to do something pleasurable. But as I left the restaurant I saw a woman in a wheelchair who had NO LEGS. It made me realize that I WILL walk normal again - but that woman never will.

Read some books you never have time to read. Get some adult coloring books and good movies. That might help. You will feel

Better before you know it.

🌼🌻🌺🌷🌸

I start PT tomorrow. I try to walk few minutes at a time, but I feel pins and needles when walking, swelling when I stand for long periods. Everything I try to do seems like a big struggle. Like you said just going out to eat it's a struggle makes you feel that you'll never walk normal again. I try to stay positive hopefully PT will help.

I hope your Physical Therapist is good! Mine is very positive, and when I'm feeling discouraged and depressed he really encourages me. Don't be afraid to tell your PT how you feel - physically and your mood. It all goes togther.  He had me watch a youtube video "Explain Pain".  It really helped, because it details how stress (like we have stress about this whole thing!) can be a big part of not healing. Just realizing that made me feel better.  

Try not to stand too long.  Icing and elevating as often as you can helps alot. Your pins and needles are probably the nerves waking up.  Sometimes mine feels like short bursts of electric shock! But it's short and goes away, and is less than a few weeks ago.  Let us know how PT went.  Where are you located?

I know how you feel , my surgery was Dec 16 and I'm only walking with cast with the help of the crutches still. I try to go to one crutch but I stumble a lot and get scared. I too can onlylet last about 5 minutes. It is hard to get out as you say but I'm going out more because it improves my mood even though it's really tiring. My doc said to wait on PT till the cast is off, April 20. I just want to walk already😫 And get out of the boot for good!!

Hope this may be of some help to you and others. I'm oban ankle replacement forum and the consensus is that it is important to concentrate on having a good gait then the rest will follow with time. Perhaps using two sticks or crutches or walking poles is the best way forward in walking correctly.

Cheers Richard

When I went through it all a year ago, I found great info on you tube re proper walking gait. I remember they said to take long strides and swing your arms as you walk and they had other many other helpful hints as well that helped many of us going through it at that time.

Patty,

Had my surgery Jan 14 so, you are about a month behind me.  Doctors and nurses tells us to do things and we have to try but above all my theory is to listen to my pain first.  If it hurts I have to stop. Do and try things gently and am happy can see some improvement. Swelling and pain is less.  I can put a bit more weight on my bad foot but there is still a long way to go.  The whole business has affected my nerves badly too.  You aren't alone for sure.  Many people before us went through the same awful times and are now walking and will also do it one day soon.

I try to read, watch films, surf on my laptop and that is how the days go by which feels like a wasted time but it doesn't have to be.  At least today is a gloomy day and matches with my mood.  When is sunny I feel more left out :-)  

I had a cust for 7 weeks and no boot at all.  Now I wear a support sock during the day. Is the boot fitting you well you think? Can you readjust it to make it fit better?

Molly

Paty,

Replied to you but don't know where it is gone!

I wasn't given a boot after the cast removal. Could you readjust it to make it be more confortable?  I listen to what my ankle has to say.  If too much in pain I stop and try again another time.  Swelling is scary but eventually gets less. I find mine isn't as bad as it was before.  

It is hard to be positive when our patience is tried to what seems like the limits.  But other people have been there and walked again.  Our turn will come too! :-)

Paty,

You are a month behind me.  This week pain is down to minimum has ever been and swelling is less scary or not as bad. I get this electric like tingling when I try to do things my ankle doesn't like and have to stop.

But as Maria said is as if our ankle is waking up and starting to learn how to work again.  I have never been grumpier, moodier, bleaker...

But there are times like today I get in a more positive mood.

Wish you and all of us strength until we cross this bridge. 

Molly

Hi molly I do have a boot and you can adjust it. I went to PT for first time yesterday for assessment the therapist told me my ankle still very stiff and showed me exercises to do. I had been on my feet most of the day yesterday so by the time I saw the therapist my foot was swollen. He said it's normal to try and elevate and ice is ok. I can walk with boot but still get pins and needles so it scares me to put more weight on. I guess it will come with time. Trying to walk with boot around the house and doing exercises now. Hope you're having a good day. Thank you for responding.

Hi janness I had first day of PT. Therapist said still have a lot of stiffness he gave me some exercises to do at home which I've been doing. I'm going to therapy once a week, I believe for five weeks not sure if I'll get more after that. Of course every symptom I have is normal. My foot was pretty swollen by the end of the day since I had been on my feet most of the day. Hopefully i can wear a shoe in 4 weeks i suppose to go back to work beginning of May. I'm in USA.

Hi margie that seems like a long time for a cast. I had surgery I had injury February 25 and surgery February 20. I had cast for 6 weeks. Now have a boot for 4 weeks and started PT. I think the exercises from PT should help you get better.

Yes I'm in a walking boot as well. My surgery was Dec 16 , so it has been a really long road for me. Sometimes I feel Ill never walk!

PT starts in 2 weeks my X-ray showed my bone graft not quite heAled yet, so doc wanted to hold off on Pt till the boot was off.

Paty- This is totally normal and you will be amazed at how in the next 4-5 weeks things will be much better and then a month after that you will feel like you join the living again. Soon you will be able to do your physical therapy exercises and gain motion and muscle back. Hang in there. This is what you have been waiting for. Every week you will be able to put more weight down. It's probably okay to take an anti-inflammatory like Motrin if you need it now if you feel a lot of pain. This stage can be slightly painful, like working out in a gym after not doing it for months. You will feel muscles and tendons you never imagined were inside of you! It's all part of the path back- you are on it now!

Hi Patti, I had bad day yesterday and today, not sure if I'm feeling pain because it's been cold or do to something else. Trying to do exercises and it is painful afterwards, but I really want to be able to walk normal again. So I'm doing all the exercises the PT recommended. I noticed though that I have less swelling, but doctor told me that lasts months. I do have tingling on the top of my foot and it feels numb, not sure if that's normal.

Hope you are feeling better.

The group of friends I went through all this with on this site, are doing great now and all had this same pain and tingling, so I know it is very normal. The pain is a moving target. It hurts one place, and then moves to another. I think it is all the tendons and muscles firing up one by one, slowly. Be sure to do all your exercises, as they are very important to get your full range of motion back. I did them religiously with a physical therapist, but there are so many great sites on You Tube and online showing you the exercises you need to do, that for those who can't afford a physical therapist out there, you really can find all the exercises online. You start with pointing toes in, pointing toes out, flexing up, flexing pointed downward as I recall, then the exercises get more complex and you use bands for resistance. I did my morning exercises in a warm bath filled with Epsom salt and it was really pretty comfortable. You know some months later you are doing great and almost all healed up when you can get on the tipped toes of the bad foot (in front of a table holding on) and go up and down on that one leg alone. That is the totally advanced stuff though- there's much to do before getting to that point and a ton of calf building to be done as well until then. One week at a time and you will notice improvement slowly. Just know this too shall pass. 

Hi all - & pstti & paty!

The good days & bad days are SO normal - frustrating when they are 2 days in a row! I think the worst part was when I started PT some of the pain was worse than when I broke it! But after being NWB for 3 months in the boot it was the muscles, tendons & nerves waking up. Yes, top of my foot was the worst. I had (still do a little) electric shock type pain! Sometimes at the sound of the phone ringing!! But this is all everything waking up. Muscles in calves too. Just knowing it's normal & will go away the more I to the exercises makes it bearable. Each week gets.better even with a few bad days.

Hang in there!

Hi Janness- I hate taking meds, but during this time I took a Motrin (anti-inflammatory) in the morning and one at night to get me through. Otherwise, I couldn't do all my exercises in the daytime or sleep well at night. It worked like magic. I drank a bunch of water to compensate for taking them, and that pain left primarily within a few months as I recall and I never had to take anything again.  This is a painful time to get muscles and tendons back, but every week you can see just a little improvement. It seems like it takes forever, but if you look back month by month, you see a ton of improvement. This is how ankles repair themselves. If you think about it, there's hardly a worse bone(s) to break and it is miraculous the surgeons and our bodies can put us all back together again. Looking back it was a huge bump in the road, and quite overwhelming at the time, but it is just a bump in the road in the end. I would just caution those who are told not to weight bear, to listen to their doctors, because I have heard a little bit of malalignment when the bones are healing could lead to later-in-life arthritis. There is no rushing ankle healing! I also remember reading about a lot of people who had jobs on their feet all day for 12 hours plus (mail carriers etc.) and they went back to work too early and it substantially increased their recuperation time compared to those of us who pushed, but not into major pain every day. We got healed and the others were still complaining for months beyond us. For a trimalleolar (triple break) like I and several of my friends on here had, I would say if you are on your feet most the day for your work, I can't imagine going back to work before month 4. For those who have jobs where they can sit, and a way to keep their leg up and ice it during work, you may be able to go back earlier. Or if you broke fewer bones and thus have a faster recuperation time, that would speed things up too I would imagine. 

Did you have any trouble bending your knee after the surgery? I'm 4 weeks post tib/fib break. I have a pretty good scar on my knee where they had to insert the rod in my tibia.

I'm trying to do my own PT right now to slightly bend my knee a little more each day. But it's so tight. Kind of afraid I'm going to rip something. Yikes!

Your bath idea sounds great. I have 3 more weeks in a cast though. When it's off, I'm going to try that.

Or just have a luxurious bubble bath and a glass of wine. Both of which I miss terribly right now. 😀🍷👠🌺😋

Take care,

Karen.

Sorry Patty, I have just seen your posting.  It is good you got rid off the cast.  Give yoursel 2-3 weeks, it will feel much better.  I know it is a painfull and nerve recking business.  I can now walk with crutches, go up and down although I had a fall on the stairs and now I have developed this fear of falling.  I can see the progress but am increasingly depressed.  I lost my motivation and interest in things, everyday life really.  I gave up antidepressants last year and will hate it if I have to back to them...  Anyway, remember we are all on the same boat and understand.  Take care and drop us a few lines when you can to let us know how you are doing.

Molly   

Dear Molly it will get better.   Google the following and see me walking and running up and down stairs at 20 weeks....nice Welsh sheepdogsdogs in the video too<G>

Cheers

Richard

Oops just realized that I failed to give you,the words that should bring up the Utube video. Put the following into Google. Yogesh total ankle replacement.

I made the video as encouragement because of the lack of such things.

Please let me know if it helped you to feel more positive. I would have been seventy something at the time.

Cheers Richard

Hi Richard,

I watched your video and wow you seem to walk perfectly normal now!

Ankle replacement as opposed to fusion as I had , seems to have you on your feet weight bearing way sooner. I was nwb for 13 weeks, it was such a long haul. I am now 17 weeks and can do one crutch but not very well. My ankle is way more swollen than yours looked at 20 weeks.

In Canada where I live they do not recommend ankle replacement because they say it will only last 10 years. At 52 I don't want to go through this all again at 62! It's great how you have had such a fast recovery. Did they say how long your ankle will last? It seems they do it way more in the UK.

I sure hope to be walking like you but fear it may take a while yet.

Cheers!

Margie

Dear Margie

Glad you found it interesting.   By the time that video was made I had been back to full time work for at least ten weeks and thet included farming work on steep hill sides and building work.  The building you see in the video is one hata I had totally rebuilt and almost finished prior to the ankle replacement surgery.   I spent the first two months after recovery finishing the internal woodwork and making and fitting log work tables and climbing ladders.

Unfortunatly the ankle has been failing from four years due to Osterlysis.   Osterlysis is pitting of the bone and is thought to be as the result of microscopic particles of debris from the metal and the poly fitting.    All artificial joint are subject to this.   Some people reacst badly whilst others do not ...it's a lottery!   My hip of wenty years was uneffected but failed due to wear  about seven weeks ago so I'm now waiting for revisions of of both which at 75 I'm not looking forward to.  

BTW perhaps I mend quickly because following my hip sugery I was walking totally unaided within five or so days of the surgery and returned to my noral activities withig a few weeks....just hope the same happens with the two revisions.  I'm very interested in your fusion because this is the fall back position with regard to my ankle if by the time they do this it has gone too far.

Best of luck with your recovery.

Richard

Dear Margie

I'm not sure that I replied to your post.

I found ankle recovery very much harder than recovery from hip surgery in 1997. I had been walking well quite some time before making that twenty week video. I thought that walking on deep gravel and running up and down stairs was a good test of the success of the surgery and I later found that my surgeon pointed his patients to it.

As I am soon to have revision surgery to that same ankle due to osteolysis I'm interested in how ankle fusion has worked for you as this is one fallback solution for me.

Regarding the swelling of my ankle it was swollen before the surgery due to a half ton generator dropping on my foot. Now both ankles are almost the same.

I have no recollection of being told the expected life of the TAR but I had an expectation of at least ten yours if I took care. I have to say that after recovery I was careful but still carried 56 lb ags of cement etc and continued on with building ad farming work.

I understand that about 800 TARs are carried,out in the,UK annually but by so many surgeons that most only do less than five a year. This is a bad.

situation because most never build the necessary experience they need to do the best job.

I've just noticed that I've already replied to your post but perhaps there is additional information here!!

Cheers Richard

Well I was so inspired by your video- and I must admit jealous It made me determined. I just did my first steps without crutches today!!!!

I'm over the moon excited, I can go about 12 slow steps.

The fusion is a much longer recovery because you are nwb for at least 8 -12 weeks minimum. It is good for life once fused and no arithritis once fully fused! I do have to have my plate removed but it is a simple procedure, with little down time. Well I am so pleased to be walking even if it just a little ways, I can build on it. I was very active and atheletic before so I can't wait to get back to my yoga group, hiking and biking and walking the dog.

Dear Margie

Thanks for sharing your experiences of fusion. I have to admit to having seriously decided to go down this route but was spoilt by the to movement my ankle afforded me and the surgeon

To continue my revision surgeon said that apart from the osteolysis that all was good and so he hopes to be able to fix it. We will see but although I'm positive by nature I'm a realist and only give it less than a 50% long term solution!

Cheers Richard

Hi Richard,

So glad for you.  You are doing great but I only have 3 and a half months after the surgery...  I really enjoyed seeing your place.  It is such a peaceful countryside.  Also impressed with your well behaved dogs.

Our Labrador used to escape.  We did a bad job with training.  We gave it to a family who know about Labs but we miss him terribly.

Thanks for the video & Enjoy your day!

Molly

Dear Molly

Glad that you liked it and the dogs. I miss them terribly especially as they learned twenty or so commands and this gave them and me a very special relationship.

All the best

Richard

Hello Richard,

Why do you miss your dogs, don't you have them anymore? 

So sorry about it...

Molly

Dear Molly

Thanks for asking. No sadly the older one surely had a fit and although I took her straight down to the vet could not be saved. A year later her daughter had a progressive breathing problem that started to cause her distress and could not be cured so had to be put to sleep.

Both dogs had been my constant companions and were my working sheep dogs. I was in the process of making a life changing move when I had to say goodbye to my second one. She was twelve years old and I was devastated that I would be,moving to my new life

It would not be appropriate at the moment to get another of these wonderful animals as I no longer have the freedom of the space or the sheep.

Apologies for inadvertently hitting the send.....to continue.

She was twelve years old and I was devastated that I would be moving to my new life without her. She had spent all her life with me and went everywhere with me.

It would not be appropriate at the moment to get another of these wonderful animals as I no longer have the freedom of the space or the sheep to keep such a dog mentally challanged or ecer

Dear Richard,

Thank you for sharing the story of your companions.

You will always miss them unfortunately. :-(

But it must be a great feeling to know they had

a happy life with and thanks to you.  I was impressed.

They weren't just obeying because they were trained.

They looked relaxed and contended around you

while enjoying their being there.

I can understand you didn't want to have another

animal.  They were irreplaceable.  

Did you use to keep sheep?

Birds, hens, cockerels and sheep are my favourite animals.

I can't have real sheep so, I collect sheep.

I can sort of walk for a while but still need my one crutch at least

(which is a progress).  I parked my wheelchair close by just in case :-)

Do you have any metal and screws left in your ankle?

How is your Canadian weather?

Spring is here, nature in bloom and temperatures cool.

Best wishes,

Molly

 

Dear Molly

Many thanks for your kind words. Actually I live in the UK, details in my profile found by d.clicking on my name at the top the post.

Yes I kept a flock of very prolific pedigree sheep so not only am I missing the dogs but also the sheep! I see that you collect sheep...sounds as if you do sheep rustling!

It must be very frustrating not to be able to walk but I’m glad that you can manage to do some walking even though you need a crutch.

I did not need any screws or plates in my ankle which was fitted with a Zenith prosthesis.

Good to hear that you are having good weather in Canada. In this part of the UK it is lovely.

Cheers Richard