Good luck
1 Like
Alternative view.
Why are you having a significant surgical intervention for something that seems to be fine?
I’m pretty sure many places just allow a broken fibula to heal with a little displacement.
The US has a much more interventionist approach than most other countries across the board.
I’ve asked myself this, and will ask the surgeon as well, but my understanding is that even with a little displacement, it will not heal properly and would be easier to break again and also invites arthritis. The first surgeon said we could go with a “conservative approach”, meaning no surgery after first saying we should have the operation. I decided to get a second opinion from another podiatrist who said, definitely get the surgery, citing the same reasons. I’ve been walking on it gingerly for showers and such and it doesn’t hurt, but it’s one of those things that could hurt if I move it “a certain way”. I am having trouble with the idea that it’s not really hurting now, but the fix will make it hurt a lot. So I dont know. And it’s hard to get expert advice from other doctors because I am not their patient, and there’s no upside to them talking to me.
What does the internet say?
Try and find health advice from the UK or Australia.
It says many things. It says fractures of the fibula near the ankle (which this is), often require surgery, but doesn’t address whether lack of pain is a good sign that surgery isn’t needed. It says many fibula fractures don’t require surgery (making exceptions for those near the ankle).
Not sure how much this applies to a fibula, but as someone with a broken collarbone relatively recently, which also is generally a break that can heal by itself without surgery, there has been a pretty big push for the surgical route in the last few years, in contrast to the just leave it alone/not worth the surgery risk from the 2000’s/2010’s as there seems to be a pretty big body of evidence nowadays that surgical outcomes are quite a bit better.
1 Like
Wait, is this guy an orthopedic surgeon or a podiatrist? What’s his degree?
They are surgeons who specialize in things involving feet and ankles. I have talked to him, and he seems to know his stuff. But I’m upset because by his own admission, his office waited too long to schedule the surgery and now it’s going to be a bigger incision and a more complicated operation. So, not happy about that.
Also, I literally can’t put any weight on the leg for a few weeks at least. I’m going to have to get a porta potty to park near my bed, because I absolutely can’t squat on the toilet from one leg without potentially crashing and wrecking the surgery. But I can stay upright and empty the bucket in the toilet after filling it with water from the bathtub faucet. But there seems to be consensus that I need the surgery for it to heal properly. This is going to be a challenge (suck).
Yeah, I get that, but are they podiatrists or orthopedic surgeons?
They have had surgical residencies. They are called podiatric surgeons. But I gather they don’t do surgeries every day. Many days they are essentially seeing patients as podiatrists.
I always prefer to have a younger doctor/dentist. More likely up to speed w new info and better hand/eye coordination obv. Old farts suck (and I’m pretty much an old fart myself). I would actively choose the young guy.
I mean I know Drs are making more money from this, but there’s a lot of wonky, not ideal ways bones can heal that are less of a risk with surgery, and the surgical procedures are better and the risks of surgery have gone down from what they used to be. I took a pretty deep dive into this with my collarbone and it was pretty clear that surgery was the better option to me. But I can’t say specifically about a fibula. I don’t plan on continuing this conversation btw.
Yeah. I was not entirely serious.
I did a collar bone in 2017. I’ve had elbow issues since and have had to stay heavy on Physio to keep it anywhere close to healthy
Ha, gotcha, it’s a difficult night to read into varying degrees of sarcasm.
OK, so they’re podiatrists. My advice, not knowing anything about them, would be to pass and see an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in foot and ankle surgery. When I had an ankle fracture, that is the type of surgeon that I saw. They definitely exist.
Yes, it’s possible that they’re fine. But just given the difference in the degree of difficulty between the two pathways, I’d imagine a random orthopedic surgeon who would do a certain surgery would be better than a random podiatrist who would also do that surgery. Presumably there are exceptions.
Also realize that this advice does not apply to your question:
I suspect this was not the answer you were looking for, but that’s what I think and you can do with it what you like. While I’m at it, I’d say that online reviews are probably trash when it comes to assessment of technical skill and I don’t think you’re going to get a good answer to how complicated/difficult the procedure is by “call[ing] around”. You would probably need to see one, and I’m sure if you did, they would also tell you that you should see someone like them instead of a podiatrist (but they would have a obvious bias).
In any case, good luck.
No podiatrists are perfectly capable too
Most people just don’t have access to surgical podiatry
They might be. What I actually said was:
Nah podiatry does nothing but foot/ankle stuff ortho has to learn a lot more
How many NFL athletes have their ankles operated on by podiatrists?
1 Like