The doctor had me wear a boot for two weeks, then the post op shoe for three. I had pt and was doing better. Then more pain set in. I saw a surgeon in Sept. and he said the first podiatrist should have done a weight bearing xray instead of the MRI. He said the surgery is very painful and my foot would continue to get worse b/c of arthritis. He said it would be worse with or without the operation. It is increasingly difficult to walk and some of my shoes no longer fit. I don't know what to do.
I had a Lis Franc injury late May. They operated 3rd June & put some wire in & 3 screws. They took the wire out 6 weeks later but I still have the screws in. I was desperate to hurry the healing up as I had arranged an Adventure Motorcycling trip 17th July in Alaska. I had hyperbaric treatment in Auckland from John Pearce during the healing process.You can google him he is a Medical Scientist with a lot of experience in sports injurys & Hyerbaric treatment. At the end of my treatments he manipulated my foot and said my big toe was still dislocated and realigned it (painful) However on 17th July I went to Alaska the day after removing my moon boot. Wearing stiff motorcycle boots helped although walking was painful & with much swelling for the first few weeks. However it improved day by day & now I can jog 6kms, walk with no limp and have virtually no swelling. On a check-up in September the orthopaedic surgeon was amazed at my mobility but sceptical when I told him about the hyperbaric treatment. However something has worked for me as its all good. I am scheduled to have the screws removed 22nd December but not sure why & uncertain if I should do it as everything seems fine.
Try not to read all of the negative horror stories. I was a marathon runner and was devastated when I had my car accident In April of 2014. It was a low speed collision on black ice but my foot was depressed so hard on the brake that I fractured my foot In 5 places. The medial cuneiform was split in half and the 2nd & 3rd metatarsals were fractured both near my toes and at the lisfranc complex. I had 4 screws inserted and 2 K wires. Because I so desperately wanted to run again, my surgeon was very conservative. No weight bearing for 4 months. I started physio at the 4 month mark and had screws removed at 11 months. Unfortunately, 1 of my screws broke so I still have a piece holding the metatarsals together. I have been to see 3 different physios and finally have one who understands how to treat this injury. I started running a few months ago and am up to 5 km and can do some intervals. I weight train and skip. I have been told this is a 2 year recovery so don't get discouraged. I still have daily pain but it lessens every week. I have great orthotics and have a podorthist who has helped me understand that I have to retrain every muscle, ligament and tendon in the foot. You can recover from this injury with the right help and mindset. stay positive! The road is long but it goes fast. I can't believe how far I've come. My kids were 20 months, 9and 11 when this happened and they have all made sacrifices for me. Take your time! Best of luck.
Please tell me the name of your surgeon. I would love his opinion on my injury.
Thanks for sharing your story. I have a very similar injury to you as I rolled my ankle which has recovered well but in the process of rolling my ankle I sustained a partial tear to the lisfranc ligament with an avulsion fracture (fleck sign) which both showed up on an MRI of my foot. The alignment of the foot bones is normal but I do have about 3.5-4mm of separation between the medial cuneiform and the base of the second metatarsal which are the two bones that the lisfranc ligament attaches to. The lisfranc injury was missed on my initial visit and was identified about 5 weeks later on a weightbearing x-ray, followed by an MRI for confirmation. I was only non-weightbearing for about 3-4 weeks for my sprained ankle and unfortunately did not know about the lisfranc injury until it started hurting during the first week of weightbearing with no boot or cast. Needless to say I was put back in the boot and have basically been in a boot for close to 3 months now with 1 more month to go. My ortho doc says he thinks I can fully recover with conservative treatment but if not then surgery is a possibility. I am glad to hear that you were able to manage your injury without surgery and hope that is the case for me as well. Your post is the first story I have seen with an almost identical lisfranc injury to mine.
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I fell 4metres off a ladder in March and was diagnosed with a lisfranc, 5fractures with ligament and tendon tears. I had an ORIF with two screws. Non weight bearing for 6 weeks. Partial for 6 weeks then screws out at 4.5months. I am now at 7 months post injury and have limited movement of my foot. Toes are still numb and cannot rotate my foot outwards. I have significant pain with pitting oedea after being on my foot for a few hours and insane itching at night.
Is anyone else having ongoing issues with movement? I have ended up having to get orthotics But still have the feeling of a sprained ankle.
Hi. Wish I had better news, but having followed the Lisfranc Recovery Club/Group over on Facebook for almost two years and now finding all the same similar sad stories here, I have hopeless limp fingers hovering over this keyboard not even wanting to chime in. I just want to throw the laptop through a window and chew my pulsing foot off like a wolf caught in a trap. Like every one of you ~ don’t you just wish you could have back that one moment before you injured it? Just take that one moment in your life. And stop. And not take the step that did it, or the hop that did it, or the dismount from your horse, or the QB sack from the side that you didn’t see coming, or the topple off your toe-shoe that you had never done in your long ballerina life of years spent on pointe, or missed that stair carrying the laundry basket down the stairs, or taken that long deep sideways lunge on the tennis court to win the point. These are the common ways that lisfranc ligaments are ruptured. I'm the lifetime athlete who claims the really lame one... missed a stair in my own home. Meaning my foot believed it was stepping down to the next stair but over-shot it and landed on the next/next stair instead (hard, because gravity is gravity and missing that first stair increased the velocity with which my dear foot with all those complicated lovely & brilliant metatarsals, slammed onto the 'wrong' stair and POP. My life changed in an instant. Dear dear readers. It's hard. I wrote this amazingly positive Facebook post over on the Lisfranc group about a year ago saying '"we can do this!" And don't get depressed, and don't get fat, and don't give up! Wow I sounded incredible. But I'm now flat on my back again, 20 months after my first surgery, having had a second just five days ago. Here we go again. All new hardware to fuse my cuneiforms into place, new plate, new screws, a new year ahead of me.
With one of the best surgeons in Los Angeles running my case with care, determination and the latest technologies, I have nothing cheerful to report. I’m challenging myself in other seemingly banal kind of challenge-ways, oh how an athlete will play mind games with ourselves just to compete or be good at SOMETHING. So this time I said no thank you to narcotic pain-killers for these first two tough post-op weeks. They made me SO sick and crazy and depressed after my first surgery, including two stoned-on-Vicodin bathroom falls (f*****g crutches) that I nearly took myself out. (percocet, demerol, dilaudid, whatever, all narcotics are nasty business and your docs just hand them out like they’re aspirin -- dreadful). I adored the look on my doc’s face at Cedars Sinai last week when I said no thank you to a narcotic Rx and likewise, no thank you to a standard issue post-op antibiotic Rx. His thoughtful eyes looked up at me and said, atta girl. For awhile I was gathering data on how many of us were having narcotic-induced crutch-falls in that first week home after surgery. Do NOT be alone that first week, esp if you’re using narcotics to cope. And/or you haven’t been really well trained on crutches. There IS a right and wrong way. You will awaken in the middle of the night to use the pot and you’ll have only been on crutches a few times and splat. And crutch falls on non-weight-bearing recoveries are ugly. Cuz you’ll do anything to not put that foot down. Sink corners, tubs… sharp shower doors… you get the picture. That and the (sorry) f*****g crutch can also break your rib as you fall into them and can’t escape them.
This time I’m going with high-dose ibuprofen for anti-inflammation, taking them like clockwork, a handful every 3-4 hours. I’m keeping my foot majorly elevated. I’m not talking about having a pillow under my foot on a bed, or up on the armrest of a sofa, no. I’m keeping my leg at about 80 degrees vertical for these first few weeks, esp as I’m forgoing the antibiotics and I don’t want any throbbing in that foot. I’m turned backwards on my bed using my headboard and a big foam wedge and other vertical enhancing cushions to get it all the way up there. I’m eating a super clean, super lean diet.This time no dropped off casseroles and lazy comfort foods just because I’m bummed and handicapped and have a teenager to feed. I’m eating an anti-inflammatory diet and drinking alot of bone broth and miso soup. No sugar. I’m taking medical marijuana for pain management in the afternoons which doesn’t make eating lean and clean very easy; you can appreciate how insane a hot melty plate of lasagna sounds every evening, but I gained 30 pounds post-op 20 months ago. Not this time. High and hungry. Sounds like a good time doesn’t it.
I joined a little local gym three weeks before surgery and met with a trainer so this time I would have a plan. The gym is one block from my house so I’ll either be able to knee-scooter down there (some call them knee walkers? Look them up - you can’t recover from this surgery especially if you have kids and other real responsibilities that eliminate the possibility of laying about for 5 months -- without a knee-walker). That or I can drive my car underground and park in the handy handicap parking space right at an elevator and elevator upstairs into the gym. I’m just going to lift upper-body weights like a maniac for the first time in my life. No eliptical or even recumbent bike this time because we think it was 5months on the recumbent bike with the tension dialed tight that drove my first screw up n out, slowly she turned, day in day out, me unknowingly just pedaling away thinking I was on the mend when all I was doing was making myself and my repair worse.
To recap. Injured 23 months ago. First surgery 20 months ago. And even with one of the best guys in the west (think Lakers & Clippers) doing the work, I never ever felt good or near-right again. Now this second surgery is a total clean-up and re-do as most of my parts were either bent, cracked or ejecting. Don’t freak out if you have dreams about screws bursting out the top of your foot. Normal.
Godspeed to each and every one of you. I have a buncha mantras which I repeat to all the well-wishers, (this is a tough injury to keep private as you look so very lame when you’re NWB out and about) And people generally only ask you what happened so that they can tell you what happened to THEM. I’m told this is human nature, but it’s usually boring. Some of my mantras are: My kids are healthy, I didn’t just have an end-stage double mastectomy. I’m not on a Syrian refugee raft. I didn’t just bury someone I love … etc etc. So I have a bum foot. I’ll live. But there are days when even the platitudes don’t hold water and you just might after all… throw your laptop through the window and chew off your foot with your bare teeth.
Peace and patience.
Jb
Pasadena, CA
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