Broke little toe in developing country, is it common that reduction by doctor fails?

Bones, joints and muscles
1

I broke my little toe in a developing country and went to a (by this country's standards) good clinic. They made an X-ray and concluded it is a closed angulated fracture of the 5th proximal phalanx. The doctor seemed unsure about the choice whether to try to perform reduction, as she said it does not always have an effect. I said it was up to her and then she did try (after local anesthesia injection). This ultimately failed to reduce the angle of the fracture though.

I am wondering if this is really a common outcome and if this will hurt me in the long run. It will cost me significant effort to fly to a more developed country on short notice to have the procedure performed again so if there is no point then I will avoid it, but of course if it means the fracture is likely to heal better afterwards then I will.

Quality of healthcare here is quite low on average and it's hard for me to estimate if this procedure normally fails and is just accepted as 'not a big deal'.

I've included the X-ray of the broken toe

Thank you for any replies!

2

Sorry I just realized there is a more suited subforum for this. I cannot find the delete button here but I will post it there and this post can be removed.

3

Hi don't know where you are but most places would strap it up and let heal, unusual to have any form of op on toes or fingers, I have mallet fracture on my finger and no op just a splint on it hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction

4

That would be true in most cases where the bone is still in the normal position but the bone is displayed in this case, for which there is a procedure called reduction.

5

I meant displaced*. And why on earth is there no edit function on this forum?

6

Because they like to see us write gobble de gook, yes displaced is the reason it may need surgery but it needs to be set pretty soon to make sure it heals correctly, delays will hinder it, so when is it being checked again