Thank you Barabara and Nellie for at least sending me off in 2 weeks time - tomorrow - with hope! The pins being removed last time were not at all nice and left too much to remember.
I will remember you saying about massage as I am so pleased it is helping you. Our surgeons all have their own ways and with that comes after care advice. Again maybe 'one size' does not fit all and we have to explore options that will suit our own feet. Not easy is it?
Now Barabara my left foot, operated on last July, was deffinatley the worse one and unfortunately was not such a success as I think the surgeon hope for. (Basically lesson learnt if life doesn't get in the way try to have op done as soon as possible.)
As I said it is still 100% improved from the deformity angle than what it was. I still get pains in the scar area running alongside my foot. But being retired and not working my choice of comfy footwear is my own. I do seemed to have lived in trainers or my latest is Sketchers.
This surgery really does highlight how complex our feet are and then the surgeon who carries out the work. I really had to pluck up courage to go for the second foot. However, at 70 I decided it was 'put up or shut up', and I was grateful I was getting it on the NHS. My big toe had travelled right under my second toe which had become a severe hammer toe.
What put me off is I asked to see the new podiatric surgeon, as the surgeon who carried out my surgery before as I said earlier had to reduce work through sudden serious illness and so dropped off NHS work and just kept to private, for a review on my left foot before I went ahead with right foot surgery. (She was called in at the 'last minute' to pick my podiatric surgeons work.)
She took one look at my left foot and said 'Not the best corrective surgery I have seen and it is too soon to do corrective! So whilst you are here I will look at your right foot! I said I have some questions and she said 'Questions!!!' I said 'Yes' and if I agree to this right foot surgery I will be asking more. (I did not think she was being very professional and decided she had to fight her way into what seems a man's world.) This was last November and she said she would have me in late December/January but I hear no more and thought maybe when she saw the state of my foot she thought I would prefer simple cases and kept putting my name down the bottom of the list.
It really left me in a state of shall I just forget the right foot and get the left foot operated on again if that is what it needs. Once you have been through this once it is not nice having to go off again and voluntarily!
Anyway I decided to raise my head above the parapet and ask for another review which I got. Then the appointment was followed up in the post with an op date for the following week!
So I cleared the air with her and said that I thought her comments did not help me at our first meeting and I will put it down to pressure of work! I said I had written down my list of questions and that is the way I am! By the time we had finished she was much better and ended our time with let us go back through your list to make sure I have answered everything. She also said she would not do corrective surgery unless I was in pain. She said it is important to be mobile and if I am able to do that with my left foot it is best left.
So now she has operated and has already used a different technique i.e. K-wires instead of pins. Last time I had one pin in the two toes nxt to my big toe. This time two K-wires in the one hammer toe next to my big toe. They would have come out 4 weeks from surgery but as she will not be at hospital then it is going to be 5 weeks from surgery.
So Barabara I cannot say I am not having problems with my left foot but I have not really tried other than comfy shoes. What the aircast boot did do was left me with problems with my back/muscle in my leg. I have had to have physio because it made my walking out of balance even though I put a shoe with a 'chunky' heal on my right foot to try to get an even height. So long walks have not been very frequent and 'dressing up' is not something I do very much.
When I had the bandage off to take stitches out of hammer toe all I could see was just the top of the wires and my stomach turned at the thought these have to come out! I was not even happy with a straight big toe - my mind went to wires - so - hopefully when these wires comes out I can enjoy my new foot whatever shape it ends up.
Hence - have this op done as young as you can. [lol]
Keep in touch both of you and it is such a comfort to get positive feed back. (Wish we could preview our psot before sending it - hope it all makes sense.)
Gilly x
