Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ankle fusion??

I'm a 47 year old active male. I broke my fibula 26 years ago and damaged the cartilage in my ankle joint. I'm now bone on bone in the ankle and looking at getting it fused due to severe pain and inability to bear weight.
Anyone have experience with this they'd like to share?

Thanks-Jeremy

My dad had it done several years before he passed. He was a physician and had some concerns about it and how much it would or wouldn't help. When all was said and done, it ended up being a very good thing for him. No more pain and much better mobility than he had in years. Obviously every case is different, but I hope this gives you something to go on.

i am a hypertensive, diabetic, with a bum right leg due to a m/c accident as a teenager. broken bones etc, crushed the ankle.
last couple of years it's gotten worse, tell me bone on bone at ankle joing, yeah i can tell you how it hurts.
i am not a candidate for fusion, or replacement, so medicare paid for a hitech leather brace i stick on my foot.
at your age, i wouldn't like the prospect of the years to come with a shot joint, just gonna get worse.

Broke mine a few years ago, that sounds bad!

I had mine fused two years ago. I had bone-on-bone arthritis and had gotten to the point where I couldn't do the things I like to do including walk any distance without pain. The ankle was also out of alignment from old basketball injuries that took out the ligaments.
When the surgeon went in, he found four bone chips and also trimmed away a big bone spur that had built up so mine was probably more invasive than most fusions. It took 14 staples to close the incision on the outside of the ankle where the bone spur was removed. The rest of it was done with very small incisions. Both surgeons I talked to also told me I was too young and active for a joint replacement, they apparently aren't very durable.

There are a couple of methods, one method uses a big open incision on the front of your ankle and an L-shaped metal brace, the other uses very small incisions and less hardware. I went with the small incisions and less hardware, only two screws. The more hardware in your foot, the more things that can go wrong, and the bigger the incision the longer it takes to heal. So talk to a couple different surgeons and see which method they use. They normally leave the screws in but I had to go back a year after surgery and have mine removed because they were causing some pain. The screws don't need to stay in, they're only used to hold the bones together until they fuse, then the screws are basically useless.

I'd do it again. I still have some pain, but not in the ankle joint, my pain is in the sub-talar joint and is very tolerable. I may have had the sub-talar pain pre-surgery, and the pain in the ankle joint masked it. I'm back to lugging a pack on elk hunting trips in the mountains and I'm 62. The surgery will change your gait and make things like depressing a gas pedal and going down stairs much different and you just have to get used to those things, and manage them. Also, you'll have a lot of time in a hard cast and then in a walking boot so you'll really need to work hard on re-hab to restore close to 100% functionality. I think I lost 2-inches off my calf muscle during recovery. I go to the gym regularly so it was just more of that but if you're not one to work hard at re-had you will lose some functionality. It took me about a year to get back to normal. Line up a good PT or trainer, you'll be glad you did.

And it will affect other things too. I was having lower back pain, went to a physical therapist who figured out that due to the changes in my gait, my hip muscles were tightening up and that was causing the back pain. So now I stretch religiously, and do some different hip muscle exercises to compensate.

Good luck, and fire away or PM with other questions.

I really don't know how much fusion was involved, but my left foot is held on with two Titanium braces that go from my anklle almost to my knee, and 15 screws. That's thanks to cushioning the fall of a Honda Gold Wing at 65 MPH with my leg after a blowout of the rear tire. That happened in June 2014. The bike came out in a lot better shape than I did. When I asked the orthopedic surgeon about flexibility of the ankle, he said "There won't be any. The other bones in your foot will have to compensate". He was right- - - -after some pretty extensive physical therapy the only real problem is that my left leg is about 1/4" longer than the right and I have to wear a heel shim in my right shoe or I wobble when I walk. If I walk half a mile or so, the ankle starts to hurt. I use a cane mostly as a balance assist, not because of weakness. I'm surprised at how little the metal splints have restricted the movement in my foot and ankle.

Thanks for taking the time to reply everyone, I'm definitely encouraged by what I'm hearing here.

So far I have been able to continue on though there are some days where I can't walk. Other times it feels like there is nothing wrong with it. I had an MRI done 7 years ago and there were things reported on that I had no idea lived in the ankle. If I have it right, the posterior tibialis tendon does not show up on the MRI. I considered a fusion but not until I absolutely can't function and am completely done with dirt bikes. My ankle actually feels best in my $600 dirt bike boots.
Good luck and keep us posted on your decision and procedure.

Bump

My dad had it done as his ankle was destroyed from sports as a kid and a lifetime of construction work. He could barely walk before he had it done as he was in so much pain. After it healed it took some getting used to. Not having any flex requires you to walk a bit differently and putting on boots can be a PIA. Glad he had it done though. He has Parkinsons now and if he hadn't done it, he wouldn't be walking anymore.