It's been 3 months since I had the surgery. Whilst it felt like I took a bit of a nose-dive around 10 week mark, I've had my final review appointment with my surgeon, and I'm doing fine.
The wound is all healed up and isn't really that visible. I don't have much sensation on the skin around it, and that might come back eventually. There's minimal swelling and the range of movement is within 'normal' parameters for this type of intervention. It's not the same as the left side, and probably around the same as before the procedure, but I can walk pretty well.
I was concerned around the 10 week mark that I'd done something bad to the toe. But the surgeon gave it a thorough exam and suggested I might be over-doing things, suggesting I pull back from my 5-miles a day (which he described as 'excellent' at this point) and go easier on the tip-toe exercises. There may be a natural limitation as to how far the joint will move or allow me to walk before I become symptomatic again, so the jury's out really as to whether it's improved from prior to the surgery. I think the lack of pain in the joint is the main indicator that it has. I can lie face down now, or on my back in bed with the covers on and not experience the discomfort that I did before the bone spurs were removed. The joint is flat, it doesn't have that knobbly joint look and feel toe joints normally do, like knuckles, but that's because the axel grinder flattened it when I dropped in on the foot (the even that started this all off).
The issue I had around 10 weeks when I felt I was walking on a swelling right under the ball of the toe first thing in the morning and the sudden on-set of discomfort along the metatarsal, the surgeon explained may be the sesamoid bones. He described how they sometimes shift and cause a strain on the metatarsal as it gets pulled more. It seems that as soon as I'm up and about they settle back to where they should be and that then there is relief from the symptoms I'm experiencing. So long as these little bones find their way back to where they need to be, I won't have problems.
I'm still in my roomy orange trainer shoes for everything, I haven't tried other footwear yet, but as we head into winter I'll try my leather walking shoes and boots. As the swelling is pretty much all gone, I'm not expecting any issues.
I've started back at yoga which is still a bit challenging in terms of poses and transitions requiring toe bends, but I just work around it. Once I'm up in the inversion - Down facing Dog - I find cycling the legs gently gives me a good stretch through the toe joint at feels good. I can now also reach a good stretch - dorsal and plantar - without having to push or pull the toe, so that feels like some muscle strengthening has started.
I'm sitting most days at a desk for work and don't experience any swelling, and everything does feel like it's back to normal pretty much.
I'm even considering doing a bit of tennis. And to be honest, I'm more worried about the knee than I am the toe!
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