complicatios to left foot after bunion surgery and second toe moved over

For the last 2 years I have had pain, burning sensation like being stuck with hot pins and needles. A rubber band affect around toes. I can not sleep at night. when lying down my foot hurt worst. even if I exercise my hamstring this cause a tighten affect. My soft tissue inside the bone swells. The metatarasal phlangeal joint space is midly narrowed. I have customed made orthotics but this isn't helping. I am in pain everyday. Please help what can I do?

RESPONSE

Hi,

It would be safe to say that your surgical experience did not turn out as you had anticipated.
To begin with, since this was an elective procedure (not a life threatening problem) I hope your surgeon went over all the potential complications that can occur in bunion surgery and hammertoe surgery (I am not clear as to whether you actually had surgery on the second toe). That in conjunction with the amount of pain you were actually having, allowed you to make a well thought out decision to have foot surgery. In my mind, the only reason a person should have elective surgery is if they are in substantial pain; pain that cannot be alleviated by a change in shoe selection.
Assuming this was the situation in your case, then the potential rewards of surgery (resolution of pain) outweighed the risks (surgical failure) and you went ahead and had the surgery.
Unfortunately, this did not work out in your case and two years down the road you still have substantial pain. I would be curious to know if your pain now is worse than the pain you were having prior to surgery. I am guessing it is.
This is where the dilemma now occurs.
After two years it is safe to say whatever degree of pain you are experiencing is no longer "healing" pain. This is what you are left with. The obvious question becomes, what can you do about it?
You mention you have custom orthotics and I will assume you have had physical therapy as well. Physical therapy at this point, two years down the road, might have some benefit, but physical therapy is most beneficial right after surgery.
That leaves you one last option and that is revision surgery, meaning whatever problems were created by the original surgery "may" be resolvable with additional foot surgery. The problem here is that it is not a guarantee. The problem with surgery on any part of the body is that when an individual heals, normal tissue is replaced with scar tissue in varying degrees. A little scar tissue is usually not an issue, but a lot of scar tissue can be a major issue as scar tissue does not function as well as normal tissue.
What would a second round of surgery create? More scar tissue.
I mention this because I am going to recommend that you get at least 2-3 second opinions from doctors other than the one who operated on you and see what advice they offer you to solve your present problem.
I am guessing some of these opinions will include further surgery, but just because they recommend more surgery you will need to press them on potential complications because as bad as your foot may be now, you do not want to have it ending up worse.
I wish I could give you a more definitive solution but I am on the other end of the internet and thus cannot examine you and have no idea of the overall architecture of your foot, as well as other contributing factors, so the extent of my advice has to end here. Be careful in the decisions you make. Good luck.

Marc Mitnick DPM
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