kehorner

The surgery does have a long recovery period, is painful, and limits your range of motion afterward. I had it done in March of this year. I think I ended up having the "best-case scenario" recovery: no complications, relatively fast, etc. But anyway, I was on crutches for 6 weeks. Then I did physical therapy for a month or two. My range of motion is pretty good now. I don't have any limitations with dorsiflexion or plantarflexion (pointing your toes downward and the opposite movement). The only movement that is really limited is inversion (the typical movement that leads to rolling your ankle, where you step on the outside of your foot). But that's okay, because you don't really need too much of that for normal activities. The surgery made an amazing difference for me. I had sprained my ankle 10 years ago and didn't want to have surgery then. It was very loose and everytime I did stuff I would roll it or it would cause me to fall and then it would be painful. So the surgery for me was a very good decision. But there are also lots of possible complications, plus the healing time, so it's not something to be taken lightly. Check out the "foot problems" board; there are lots of threads on ankle ligament surgery there (some of the procedure names are Brostrom and Evans). Good luck.