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Calcaneus Surgery ORIF Success Stories?
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Also a post-Irma heelie (12 ft. fall). I'm at 12 weeks with plate and 9 screws and walking with assistance. Do the exercises religiously and you'll be fine. Also, lots of calcium, magnesium, protein will give you a better-than-new calcaneus. Good luck! |
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Going to the surgeon to get CT scans next week, its been 4 months since my surgery. Bone chunk on the bottom of the foot is causing discomfort. In addition I cannot straighten my leg completely for strength lifting or sports such as rowing sue to some mobility issue on the external rear of my heel. If I deadlift(which i have tried or squat) I feel quite a bit of pain on the inside of my knee, Im lacking a a of mobility, my physio says it feels solid at the back of my heel and ankle joint "like a block of bone" |
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Sad to say but might want to pick up another hobby. I can dead lift 100lbs and 130 max if I really want to feel some pain. I have mobility issues. Its what happens when you break your heel. You just adapt to it. At least you got one good foot. I don't have any. We can all paint a pretty picture of hope but reality is reality. Be glad you can walk. Just keep at it but as John Wayne said "A man has got to know his limitations" |
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I found this forum on mountainproject and even though I'm not a climber, I hope it's okay to post here to gain some support and much needed optimism. My horse and I took a very bad fall Nov. 7, and I ended up in a trauma center via ambulance. I don't remember much of that day since even though I wore my helmet, I had a concussion from being thrown into a fence facefirst and then landed on my back. A witness said I looked like a crash-test dummy. After head and pelvis MRIs, the only injury I had was a "beak" avulsion fracture of my left calcaneous. There is no time to wait on a fracture like this, as it was bulging, it was so close to being a compound one. I underwent surgeryw/ ORIF that same day. Twelve days later, I went out for the first time with my husband and I fell off my crutches, landed on and rolled my bad foot, and the incision opened. Off to the local university hospital ER where xrays showed that all the hardware had popped out and the fracture opened again. I had surgery again the next morning, this time with some serious Frankenstein screws as replacements and with an internal clamp on the bottom of the heel. I spent four days in the hospital with IV antibiotics since the incision opened, and also underwent twenty 2-hour treatments in the hyperbaric chamber for healing with 100% oxygen under pressure. Now I wear a removable three-part boot that has a lock to keep my foot flexed at a 20 degree angle. I have a Knee Rover and a walker, but am afraid to use crutches again. I guess I am here to say thank you for sharing your stories. By reading all your posts that detail your own calcaneous fracture journeys, I find tremendous encouragement in your words. Some of you are NWB for a time having had recent surgery, others are in the PT and rehab phase, and then there are those of you who are a year or more out and are once again doing the things you love. I was feeling very discouraged, but thanks to you folks, I know there's hope! I can't wait to get back in the saddle. BTW, our daughter and her husband are climbers- we raised our family in Seattle. They live in Leavenworth now. I'm sure they're on mountainproject.com alpine route forums:) |
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Trish, You have had a really rough time. So sorry. I too fell twice on the crutches. Thankfully I had the boot on both times. But also be careful with the scooter. I fell off it twice. Once outside going to the mailbox and simply ran over a seam in the concrete, boom in the street. Another time in the house. On you tube find fighterretired, Michael Rollins has 4 videos showing his progress when he broke his calcaneus in 2011. Best of Luck on your recovery, Lin |
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Hello everyone! First off, this is by far the most positive blog I have found about sharing our stories of recovery from this nasty injury. I would like to apologize in advance for this post because it is going to be a long one. I would like to share my journey down this path to regaining normalcy in hopes that it may help someone, like all your stories have helped me over the past 19 months. Here we go… My injury happened in April 2016. The swelling was severe enough that my doctor had to wait to do surgery for about 2 weeks, even though it was still very swollen when the surgery happened as well. I had 14 or 15 pins and a plate put in to stabilize my heel. On the third day after surgery, I went to get out of bed and it felt like I shoved my foot in a raging inferno! It was one of the worst pains I have ever experienced. In total I spent 14 weeks non weight bearing before moving to a walking boot. I never knew how much I took for granted walking until this happened. Pain was a normal and constant thing of things to come. Once in the boot, my doctor cleared me to start physical therapy. I remember the day I was put in the boot I went to my first PT appointment. While I was going through my initial evaluation my therapist asked me to just stand on both feet while I was out of the boot and my response was “NO!!!” Did it hurt, we all know it did. The important thing I think is to stay persistent and consistent with trying to get better. Some days are better than others, but sometimes you have to endure some pain to gain! While at therapy I went from starting in the boot, to moving to running shoes with a gel pad under my heel, and finally to just wearing a normal sock. Later on I did find that wearing a plantar fasciitis compression sock did help some with the pain. I did 20 sessions of therapy twice per week. I felt that I showed a lot of positive results fairly quickly and then they plateau off later. Keep strong with your workouts though because they will help you. As a lot of you have experienced, I get stiff in the joint in the mornings, after long days on my feet, and if I take a break from standing during the middle of the day. Its important to stretch your calf and plantar fascia to help aid with this. There have been days when I have come home and at night it looks like there is a baseball in my ankle. Ice and ibuprofen have become a close friend of mine on many a night. Remembering to stay positive is sometimes very tough to do throughout this very lengthy process. I had two different appointments with my doc where they gave me cortisone shots in 2 different spots in my foot to try to reduce scar tissue, help with pain, and try to promote gaining some further ROM. They helped for a bit, but I hate to say they were more like a tease. I was feeling hardly any pain for a week or two, but it came back full steam ahead unfortunately. I took up riding a bike when I could to try to stay physically active and it was a huge activity for myself because of the low impact. I recommend this to anyone and always noticed that I felt better on the days I would go for a ride. I actually went jogging some too a few times. I would run between 1.2 and 1.7 miles and actually felt ok in my foot after doing it. I was really timid at first doing this, but I would just say be careful if you are thinking about doing it and see what you Dr. says about it. Still, I wasn’t happy about my soreness and ROM in my ankle. It basically feels like I have arthritis everyday. After my 18-month appointment I finally decided to have my hardware removed. I had been kicking around this idea for a while, but we decided to finally do it. I just had it done and my doctor is optimistic about the outcome. Took out all but one of the screws, it broke in half while they tried to remove it. They would have done more harm trying to pull it out so they left it in. They said they removed A LOT of scar tissue in my foot and removed some bone around my Achilles tendon as well. Right now I am laying with my foot up writing this in pain once again, hopeful that this procedure can improve what I call my “new normal.” When your kid wants to run around and play with you and you can only do it for like two minutes if at all is one of the worst feelings you can have. I want to tell you all how much of a blessing it was for me to read all of your posts, how inspired you made me feel, and how much you kept me motivated to keep pushing to get better. I hope that y’all stay positive and keep up the fight…I know I am trying too! |
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Skip, Best of Luck on your hardware removal. I hope it really helps with your continued heeling. Lin |
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Hi everyone , I broke my calcaneus December 3 2016. Surgery December 16 2016. One year and 1 month I'm still not recovering well I have good days and bad days ...mornings are terrible my foot soo stiff and night cramps if I walk for at list 15 minutes my foot swallow on the side of my surgery I have 1 long screw and 1 small. I'm soo frustrated and worried I will never walk the same :-( |
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Ornella, Maybe you should go back to your Dr. Just to be sure that all is still ok inside. I am sorry for your pain & frustration. Best of Luck Lin |
Ornella Di Lorenzo-Sibilla wrote: Ornella, I would definitely schedule a follow-up with your surgeon to check and see what all is going on with your foot. This is a very bad injury, everyones injuries are all different, and healing takes a long time to happen. I wish you the best and hope that you can get some good news and a better outcome. |
L Hong wrote: Thank you Lin. Waiting to have a follow-up with my Ortho. |
JSH wrote: Thanks so much, I hope that in three months to be able to report back on that. Waiting to have a post-op follow-up with my Ortho. I did have some issues with my wound closing after surgery, but all seems to be normal now. I will say that this surgery was nowhere near as painful as the one where the hardware went in and my Dr. is letting me walk as tolerable so that is nice, but I probably overdid it a bit too early. Had to slow myself down to be in less pain. Looking forward to getting the stitches out and getting back into rehab again. Hope everyone is well out there and I will check back in again with another update. |
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New update 6 months after my initial surgery to repiece my foot together from 12 pieces - saw my ortho - she wants to do a surgery asap! I have lots of bone floating in among the tendons Take out all the hardware (3 screws) 2 of which are on the outside of my foot and might be aggravating the tendons remove a large hagalunds deformity on the back of my achilles making shoes very painful fitting into apperently there are a lot of sharp edges and points from the initial surgery to remove ALSO there has been a large chunk of bone that has been just floating under my heel that clicks when i put pressure on it and shifts with weight bearing its going to be a day surgery, I have made quite a good recovery but am looking forward to the improvements all these will yield :) Thank you for being such a positive community. Bonus: picture of the floating bone under the heel  |
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Michael, Best of Luck with the clean up surgery. My bet is that it will help you in your continued recovery. Keep the faith. Lin |
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Good luck Michael, hope all goes well for you with your follow-up surgery! |
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Many thanks Lin and Skip :) such a great community, its a small setback in terms of healing - does anyone know how the recovery is in length or what to suspect compared to the initial surgery? |
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I am right in the middle of my recovery from the hardware removal. I go back to my Dr. on Thursday and am hopefully getting my stitches out at that time. I am 2 weeks post-op right now and am walking on my foot full weight bearing. They gave me what is like an ortho shoe to use not a walking boot so that has been nice to not have to be in the full boot. At night I walk carefully around the house a little without the shoe and it hasn't bothered me any. I have noticed immediately that my ankle is not feeling the pressure from the swelling that my foot would have before the surgery. My Dr. removed a lot of scar tissue from the area and also said that there was a nerve that got wrapped up in that scar tissue. So that was probably causing some of my pain issues as well. Time will tell, but I am very hopeful that this will help. Compared to the initial surgery to put the hardware in and heal the bone this has been a "night and day" difference. Best of luck to you and I hope to hear good things on your recovery. |
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all the best, Michael! Let us know how things go. |
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My surgeon gave me the go-ahead to bear weight yesterday as well as the ok to drive again. I still have to wear my aircast and use a walker for balance. Even though it was good news, I was very reluctant, but managed. When I put my heel down the first time, I held my breath. There is a tingling nerve pain when I do so, and I wonder if it is because I had a clamp installed to hold the bottoms of the three screws together. There was an incision on the bottom of my heel. Have any of you had that done to secure your hardware? I’m practicing again today. Thanks for your support, everyone! |
