tootsie:)

Hi lifwynn - I responded to your first post and ironically, here I am again able to offer you a response to this question. I had bunion correction in order to relieve my discomfort, but at the same time I had my big toe shortened, not a lot as it doesn't look that much different. Have a look at my recent post "Anyone with failed bunion surgery" and you will see what my experience has been - not good, in fact it has been life altering. Granted, this could still have been the outcome if my toe wasn't shortened, but I won't ever know that for sure. It has been 15 months since my surgery and my foot has not been the same since. My surgeon said I have a neuroma but when I went for second opinions, both doctors thought that my problems stem from a short first metatarsal (and not a neuroma) which I can assume is from the extra bit of bone that was removed. I have one more appt. this week to see yet another orthopedic surgeon, so I'll see what he has to say. So at this point I must say that the cause of my problems isn't entirely conclusive and therefore I can't say for sure if shortening my toe is at the root of all of this. So far my outcome has been that either I may need more surgery to try and correct this, of course with no guarantees and possibly even more problems or this is the way my foot will be from now on and I will have to learn to live with it. I guess there is always the chance that my foot will settle down and be manageable down the road, but nothing can make up for the time that I've lost agonizing over my discomfort and limitations not to mention that I've spent thousands of dollars because of all this. Maybe I was just unlucky and there are others that have had no problems after. I know that shortening an overly long second toe is fairly common and that certain bunion correction procedures do produce a shorter toe, I'm sure there are safer ways to go about that, but for the right reasons where that procedure is warranted. Who knows what went wrong with my particular case. I don't mean to scare you, but I just had to write and tell you my experience so that you go into this with your eyes wide open and even possibly save you from a similar fate. To me, any doctor that would agree to do something for esthetic reasons knowing it could possibly compromise the foot's function could not have much in the way of ethics. And if he didn't know then what can I say. The almighty consent form that a patient signs will save them in most cases. The business of making this bigger or that smaller is taken so lightly by people including myself and we are naive when we don't consider the risk that things can go wrong. What I had done and what you are considering fall into this category I'm afraid. I know now that vanity=insanity and I beat myself up for how stupid I've been in allowing this to happen to myself. You may also be interested to know that esthetically, my toe does not look a heck of a lot better then it did before. If I could have my old foot back, bunion pain and all, I'd do it in a heartbeat. So my advice is to get a few opinions. I understand you have pain from your bunions but please be very wary of anyone that would agree to do something for the sake of cosmetic reasons only. If you have any more questions please feel free to ask me.