First the physical therapy has definitely helped. My range of motion is coming back....slowly but surely. I've learned the CORRECT things to be doing as opposed to what I was told earlier by HIM....grrrrrrrr. And while it's not helped me I do believe it will help people in the future on this one. Just in talking to others who've had different problems that were minor(no surgery required) and the horrible experiences they too went through at the same clinic where I had my surgery done has given me even more info to send in! It truly amazes me that I didn't run across anyone who told me anything negative about them beforehand. I do believe I know why though. I've had quite a few people tell me that when I mentioned "bunion surgery" their minds stopped there and they knew what I had been through medically already and just didn't want to tell me what I was in for. I don't think they even heard(if I told them??) where I was having it done.
...ok, so here are my questions...:)
I think I said before just what I had done as far as the bunionectomies. I was never told a specific name even when I asked so all I can tell you is that the bone was sawed off(where the bunion was) then the toe was sawed in half(one...maybe twice?) and there are now 3 pins in one toe and 2 in the other holding the bone together and they will stay there...made of titanium I believe.
I'm just wondering if I'm where I should be, doing something wrong...just what?? I think having been so blinded before has really made me want to know what to expect and also what I SHOULD expect so I'll know if something isn't as it should be. Right now I'm right at 15 weeks on the right foot and 12 on the left post op.
I'm still having trouble with the swelling. Quite a bit actually. I can't wear regular shoes. I'm in the VERY large tennis shoes that yes, actually fit my so swollen feet. The swelling will be down some in the morning but it doesn't take long or much and it's back. Is that normal at this point?
The balls and front of my feet hurt...sometimes hurt...but alot of the time HURT. Of course that's after I've done anything at all that puts any pressure on them. Actually the whole front part of my feet hurt...little toes and all but especially around the ball of my foot. It will become very black and blue even. I'm making sure to not walk on my heels but have a big limp most of the time. It actually feels best after I go to pt...I seem to walk closest to normal then. Am I expecting too much or is this normal?
I know I'm past the worst of it but want to ensure everything ends up ok. Having had such unrealistic expectations has really gotten me lost with all of this. I don't know if I'm doing too much, too little...or what? Knowing me I'm overdoing if anything. I'm one of those that(stupidly at times) thinks the more I do the faster it will get well. I'm wondering if maybe that's a problem even? I know noone can give me a set guideline of just what to expect but just based on what you've seen am I progressing ok or not? I called the orthopedist(sp?) I spoke of before and her appt book is of course sooooooo backed up that it's months before you can get in with her. I don't know if I should go ahead with that or not. ....anyway....I hate to be a pest but just want to know if I'm progressing ok or not and really don't have anywhere much to turn. The pt is a help but honestly I don't think they see alot of bunion surgeries with this clinic doing most of them. I don't think they see hardly if any to tell you the truth. I'm just lucky really that the lady who's taking care of me had to have hers fused when she was in college so has some knowledge from that. Otherwise I feel like I'd be up a creek!...thanks for the input....and for the encouragement that's gotten me this far. This is going to really make me appreciate life AGAIN....I was doing so well the past couple years in comparison to before and knew I didn't feel well but my mother said something tonite and I always think I can hide it so well. Obviously not. It's not fun to have my feet hurt and the rest of me hurt too.....I think my body's had enough for now and is on overload......

I haven't had that particular surgery. But I would suggest that you go ahead and book an appointment with the ortho. You could always cancel it later. Also, give them a call every few days to see if there is a cancellation. You'd be surprised what could happen and you might develop a nice telephone relationship with their booking person. Just ask her/him when you book if it's ok to check in for cancellations.

Hi Cindi - Well, let's see.... I'm at 11 weeks post-op, so slightly shorter time out than you, but I do definitely - very much - still have pain and a lot of swelling. I too have only a pair of extra-large tennies that I can wear - purchased a full size larger than my normal size, so I could have SOME shoes that I could wear! :rolleyes: Now I just received some "SoftSpots" shoes that I bought just 1/2 size larger, on E-bay (got a GREAT deal, and they are SO comfy!!), that I was able to wear to church on Sunday morning - but if I'd have tried later in the day, I doubt I would have gotten them on. When I took them off after getting home SUnday morning, there was a LINE of swelling right where the shoe ended, and within a few minutes of taking the shoe off, the rest of the foot swelled up so that I couldn't have gotten that shoe back on for the life of me!

SO, based on my experience, and from what I've heard from others here, YES, swelling is still very common at this point - and can be for several months - some have even said up to a YEAR!! :eek: I'm also still having much pain, though I think that is slowly improving. I'm finally able to get on my treadmill for a short time each day (anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, at very slow speed), and am hoping that will help speed healing, reduce pain and swelling. I'm going to be calling my podiatrist today and ask him to set me up for PT - he had told me, about 3 weeks ago, or so, that if it was still so swollen and puffy after another week or two, to call him and they'd set me up with PT... I was hoping to avoid it, as it's very hard for me to squeeze something into my day-time schedule (I homeschool our kiddos), but at this point, I think I'm going to HAVE to, as I'm still having quite a bit of swelling and pain - and, like you, it gets worse as the day goes on. By bedtime my foot is SO swollen/puffy/stiff/sore!

As far as not hearing negative things about your doctor until AFTER your surgery - that's EXACTLY what happened to me with my first spinal fusion. I did some asking and checking, and had heard that my neuro-surgeon was "very good" etc., but AFTERwards, when I had problems, (especially problems with HIM), was when I heard several horror stories about him. :( I was really quite angry with a friend of mine who is a nurse at the hospital where I had it done - I specifically asked her several questions about him, including his after-care, etc., and all she told me was that he was an excellent surgeon... No mention of the fact that he would not prescribe adequate pain meds in immediate post-op period (this was a MAJOR, MAJOR surgery, in hospital 5 days, and he wanted me to take TYLENOL!!!) :mad: The nurses had to call the other neuro-surgeon, as mine wouldn't answer his pager or his phone, he came ONCE the morning after surgery (for all of 2 minutes, during which he didn't say a word to me - just walked in the room while looking at my chart, then left, after ordering a nurse to remove PCA/morphine pump that the other NS ordered for me!) to check on me in hospital. The other NS had to Rx me a PCA morhpine pump the night of surgery, after I was in AGONY for the first 3 hours post-op (that's when I found out my surgeon "doesn't believe in them" - bet he would if HE had this surgery!!), nurses had to call the other NS to come and see me for after care, AND to discharge me, as my NS never came back after the first morning (I had gotten out of surgery at 8:00 the night before), yelled at the nurses to take the PCA/morphine pump away, then left, NEVER CAME AGAIN ONE TIME for the entire next 4 days!!! :mad: Then, when I had follow-up appointments after surgery, he was a complete A*S and made me feel like a loser because I still had pain.... told me "When my back hurts, I just do a few sit-ups, then it's fine" (this 4 weeks after major fusion surgery!!) :mad: I heard then, AFTER my surgery, several nightmare stories about him (including a malpractice lawsuit that was so recent it didn't show up when I researched him before surgery). I asked my friend why the H*LL didn't she tell me any of this about him BEFORE I had surgery - she said she "just couldn't" :mad: but agreed with me afterwards that he is an arrogrant jerk and had messed up bad on a couple people... :rolleyes: I wrote a long, detailed letter to the hospital "chief" telling him all about the MANY problems I had with this doc (including how he falsified my records, saying that I said all pain was gone (NOT!) and surgery was total success (NOT!), in order to make HIMSELF look good!!), and they NEVER EVEN REPLIED - AT ALL!!! (I suppose they were worried I was getting ready to SUE his BUTT!) (I didn't because I still needed NS care - his partner, who was much better, and I didn't want to scare him off) :rolleyes:

ANYway, I'm sorry you were stuck with a jerk-dr. too - I DO know how you feel! Angry! (and you're totally justified in your anger, IMO!)

I think that, if you could, it might be a good idea to try to get an appointment with someone else, even if just for your own peace of mind, to know if everything is "okay", but it does sound to me (from other people's posts) that pain and swelling at this stage of recovery is still pretty normal... :(

I hope you start seeing more improvement soon!

JD

Wow! You sure write a long letter. If I tried that, I'd still be typing tomorrow!! ;) Sure is interesting to read though!! While I'm not a pro by any means, here is what I've been told. 75% of the healing takes place in the first 2 months and the additional 25% can take up to a year. You may have some pain and swelling but that should at best be getting slightly better each day or couple of days or at least stay the same. From that point, if you experience pain or swelling which increases drastically, then you MAY have a problem developing. ( That's what happened to me. I was nwb for 6 weeks but with slow improvement and during the 2 weeks of weightbearing(even faithfully wearing the boot), pain intesified and swelling became much worse. That's why I'm back to NWB. :eek: ) You should have had some sort of xray to show healing of the osteotomy area. If not, you should definately (in my opinion) at least set up an appointment to be sure the bone has come together.That is the only real way to tell. Sometimes it even may look good on xray but the inner part of the bone may have healed but not the outer part. So glad to hear that you are so active!! Please do not overdo it!! I have such a wonderful doctor that it is even hard for me to fathom what you are going through!! I'm so sorry for that!! Sophie :angel:

Thanks for the help everyone. You're right Sophie!lol! Typing somehow came to me a little quickly so it doesn't take me long to type anything. Only problem though is boy can I turn out some novels..eeeeek!..as I'm sure you've all seen!:)oops!

I'm going to go ahead and make the appointment with the other doc and thanks for telling me to keep calling for cancellations or I'd not thought of/forgotten that!

I'm so ...SO...sorry for what you had to go through JD!!!! Just with my own medical "stuff" I've had more than my fair share of bad doctors and well...ridiculous is just not even the word. I can't even think of a strong enough word for it all! And the ones I can I wouldn't want to post on here! Someone wrote earlier about making a website about the bad doctors. I think that's a fabulous idea!!! Not only the bad ones but even put in the good ones maybe. It seems after you go through some bad ones you finally find a really good one and it takes having seen what all can go bad to really appreciate the good doctors. It really affects a person too. Here you are looking for answers for a medical dilemma and wanting help and to then have to go through worse pain and trauma because of the doctors screwups as well as the emotional toll on TOP of all you're going through physically can just be too much. Some of the things that happen really make you wonder about them too. I had an artery wrapped around my ureter cutting off the urine flow from my kidney to my bladder when I was a kid. Ended up they had to cut me half in two and reroute it. I can't tell you all I went through before they figured it out and I found a good doc. The one that really sticks with me though was when my dad carried me into this docs office while I was in the middle of it happening(was about 1-2times/week)....my kidney would swell up about 8-10 times normal and it would be like the pain of a kidney stone. I was maybe 5'5" at the time and so sick I'd gotten down to around 75 lbs. It was pitiful. I was in my gown and robe and the doctor looked at me and said "Sit up straight. Sometimes a little seed is planted in our heads when we want attention. You're the middle child and this is your way of getting attention." My dad snatched me up and got me out of there! Thankfully it wasn't too much longer before I found a good....WONDERFUL...doctor who fixed it. It took over 2 yrs to get to him but thank goodness I did. I literally owe my life to him. I'll never forget the other doctor coming in after surgery though...about 2 days after.....and just staring at me. Never said a word, an apology...nothing. Here I was just 13y/o. pathetic. Then the idiot doc who actually told me...yes, this REALLY happened!! I'd been diagnosed with everything under the sun and strangely fit all the tests for it all. When they did a test for Lyme and other infections similar it all came back positive. He came in the room and told me but then said. "This may all show up positive but it's impossible. Only dogs get these diseases in our state." I felt so bad at that point and was so angry I'm not sure where where I even had the wit to think but said to him "I guess I need to find a really good vet then."....walked out of the room in the blue gown in the middle of winter. My mother of course came running with my coat to put around me and I said just get me the h*** out of here. ...well, enough doctor bashing but somethiing needs to be done. I'm not directing this at your doctor but one thing I always noticed in pharmacy was when a doctor had a problem treating pain or refused to it seemed to never fail that it would come out later they had a problem themselves......iow....they only liked to treat themselves for pain...whether they needed it or not. I don't mean that judgmental but when I see that red flags go up. I'm honestly wondering about the guy who did my surgery even. I've found it very strange that I've not taken but a few of the painkillers he gave me but when I've complained he's chewed me out and scolded me like a child as if I had downed them and were asking for more. It really makes no sense...none at all. And then the remark about ..."You should be walking the mall right now!!!"....this just after the surgery??? Lots of other things but I can't type THAT fast!!!

...sorry I got off on a tangent there....whooops!

I was so tired last nite and just haven't felt well in general on top of the feet and knew I'd forget something. A couple more questions....Of course it feels much better with the tennis shoes and support it gives so I wear them but occasionally at nite if I have to get up to go to the bathroom will walk on my heels even if it's slower and yes painful....just don't want any lights on and feel bad. He said not to walk barefoot at all. He also said that it would take a car running over my feet to reinjure them. Just wondering.....I understand that at first but what about now and just going to the bathroom? What's the rule on that?

Had another question but now forgot it....sheez.....I'm not doing so hot today or the past few days. Have really felt tough and the feet haven't helped. Thanks again for the input on the swelling and all. HE has made me feel like it's of course somehow MY fault I'm not up and running sprints everyday. I'm going to call the other doc now and hope there's a cancellation soon.

I do hope everyone else is doing much better!!!!
cindy