Cheilectomy Day 5

This is the first day off the pain meds. I swapped over to one 200mg ibuprofen in the morning and the evening, supplemented with a 500mg paracetamol during the day. It was fine, but I really needed that ibuprofen when I went to bed tonight!

This is probably due to increased activity - I was moving around a fair bit, and sat on the sofa watching a movie last night with the foot on a stool - and there was less time with the foot raised above heart level.

I can move the toe a bit now, just gently downwards - haven't attempted trying to bend it upwards yet. I do gentle exercises - rotating the ankles on both legs, gently flexing the ankle back and forth, and using a stretchy band on the non-surgical foot to stretch the calf muscles, keeping both legs elevated up a wall and feeling the lovely flow of fresh blood as I lower them down to waist level again.

It helps to bring a bit of massage to the feet, the ankles, the toes and the calves all benefit from stimulating the blood flow. There's a little bit of bruising to the surgery side ankle where I kicked off when I was being stuck for the surgeon to find the nerve on the day of surgery.

I bruise really easily - and it's normally long-lasting - so this is no surprise.

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Cheilectomy - Day 14

Lots of mobility now - whizzing around doing everything for myself, except shopping and walking the dog. Can walk ok in the surgical shoe and do stuff like preparing meals and washing up, getting up and down stairs, walking to the car. Still icing the foot just to ward off any swelling, wiggling the toe and stretching it. Sometimes, without warning it has a sudden ache - similar but not as intense to the pain I'd experience often before surgery. Went out to the local tea rooms for a couple of hours with the Sunday papers, so feeling a little more normal. Looking forward to tomorrow when I have my post-op appointment back at the hospital, and to losing the surgical shoe and the bulky bandages.

Cheilectomy Week 8

As I go into week 8 from the date of the cheilectomy and osteotomy to treat hallux rigidus stage 2, I'm mindful that this is supposed to be a big turning point. In my notes that I was discharged with it states, "You should return to your normal daily activities (and stop the PT exercises) after 8 weeks, although exercising the joint from time to time may still help." Now I'm a bit literal, so I'm tempted to follow the guidance to the letter. But I actually think my PT has really only just begun. Maybe that's because I had the osteotomy, maybe the guidance is pretty good for cheilectomies on their own. And as for getting back to 'normal' activity, well, given that normal activity was much reduced due to the condition of hallux rigidus in the first place, this could be a little difficult to measure (and since I'm not a runner, and I'm in my mid fifties, it puts me a little at odds with the experiences of many in blog posts and discussions I&#

Cheilectomy 5 months

As each month milestone approaches, it feels like the toe is worst than the month before, but when I read back, I can see that's a fallacy. I guess, as it gets better, I just measure its progress day by day, so some days it feels worse and some days it feels better. And that's kinda the lesson learned in this post. For example, the last couple of weeks we've had a cold snap in the UK (temperatures down to -2 in the daytime), so I've had to swap the trainers to more suitable walking boots (something I couldn't wear last month). I've been in the walking boots every day now for a couple of weeks. It feels roomier than when I tried the boots last month, so that indicates the swelling (from Covid probably) has gone down. It's more comfortable to wear the boots now, so clearly that's progress. I've been doing around five miles in them, but do find that it's a matter of one day on, one day off. So if I do a five mile walk one day, I'm not up for a

cheilectomy-diary

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