Hello there! As I prepared for my own surgery this past week, I found it helpful to read blogs others had written about their own experiences. I figured I would pay it forward by recording my own, and hoping that it will help others who are experiencing similar foot and ankle problems.
I am a 34 year old music teacher in rural PA. Last fall, I began experiencing dull aches and pains in my right foot- something not completely out of the ordinary, as I have had completely flat feet my entire life and a diagnosis of tendinitis for both of my feet when I was a kid. Because of anxieties related to COVID-19 and visiting the doctor's office, I put off making a call until April of 2021, when one day I was having difficulty walking without pain. I figured it was time. (Incidentally, if you are also a music teacher, it was the day after I taught the "Sasha" dance to my 2nd and 3rd graders - so a bit more movement than usual.)
My family doctor is part of a much larger practice of physicians and programs, so I was able to directly make an appointment with a foot & ankle doctor within my practice without needing a referral. My first visit involved X-rays and, after the doctor pushed around my foot and ankle a bit, he diagnosed me with a torn posterior tibial tendon in my right foot. I was prescribed a walking boot for four weeks.
One of my coworkers, upon spotting me with the boot, advised me to make an appointment with a chiropractor. She said when she had worn a boot for a foot injury in the past, it threw off her gait and gave her hip and back pain. After just a weekend of wear, I could see she was right. I quickly found a chiropractor in town and he was helpful in adjusting my back and hip throughout the last few months. (Honestly, I wish I would have thought to go to a chiropractor when I was breast-feeding my babies. That was so hard on my neck and shoulders, and having adjustments would have been miraculous... but I digress.)
After two weeks of wearing the boot, I was feeling significantly better and my foot doctor was impressed with my progress, so he downgraded me to a brace, which I was to wear with sneakers at all times. After two weeks of the brace, he started transferring me to shoe orthotics (I was familiar with these, having worn them as a kid). Then, over Memorial Day weekend, something happened within my foot to send me straight back to where I'd started with pain. I honestly have no idea what caused it - I didn't do any out-of-the-ordinary activity, but when I woke up that Monday morning I put my boot back on because my foot hurt so much.
I had a follow-up appointment scheduled for that week anyway, so I told my doctor that I was back to the same pain as before. He scheduled me for an MRI and a follow up appointment to go over the results. At this point he was warning me that surgery was becoming a more distinct possibility. When I returned to his office post-MRI, he asked if I looked at the results. I told him I'd looked at them, but they hadn't meant much to me between the medical jargon and images. He said, "Well, we'll talk about your tendon first, and then move on to the other things." My brain immediately went on alert - other things?! Basically, my tendon was definitely torn and the only way to repair it was going to be to build an arch in my foot. 33 years of my lack-of-arch pulling down on my PT tendon had stressed it to its breaking point. If they would just try to repair the tendon but not the arch, it would be pulled down again in no time- a worthless surgery. Official Surgery Conversation then began.
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