Question about peroneal tendon surgery - Foot Problems Message Board

alabamajack · 01-16-2009, 07:34 AM

I injured my ankle several months ago. I've had 2 MRIs and both have indicated a small tear in the peroneal brevis tendon, and my ortho has recommended surgery to repair the tear. My question is this...is surgery always necessary or will the tear eventually heal itself? My ankle right now has limited range and is frequently swollen, but on some days it feels fine. I know that this surgery has a pretty lengthy recovery, so any advice would be really helpful!

emmie54 · 01-16-2009, 07:03 PM

I had peroneal surgery and I wouldn't consider this a lengthy recovery. Of course I am comparing it to my PTTD surgery so I guess it's not a fair comparison! It was four weeks non weight bearing, four weeks in a boot, with 4-6 weeks PT beginning at 4 week post op. (PTTD was 6 weeks NWB, 6 weeks boot, 3-4 months PT, 12 month full recovery)

Once I had the tear show up on MRI there wasn't any other discussion other than surgery so I assumed there was no chance of it healing on it's on. It really wasn't a bad surgery. It was supposed to take about half an hour but once he got in there he discovered both of my peroneals were torn (which didn't show up on MRI) so it took about an hour. Was home a couple of hours later. Not a lot of pain afterwards.

Again, after PTTD surgery, which is quite painful, it seemed so minor, so maybe I'm not the best one to respond! Good luck.

emmie