Ankle fusion for posterior tibial tendon dysfunction

Posted by 1956 @1956, Aug 27, 2020

I have doctored for almost 2 years with what has turned out to be posterior tibial tendon dysfunction. Many forms of therapy did not restore the tendon. My condition is worsening and now "ankle fusion" surgery has been proposed. I am looking for comments, input from anyone who has has ankle fusion, i.e. what to expect, complications, etc. - I am a very active 64 yr old, love walking, dancing, low impact fitness classes and want to keep up with 5 busy grandchildren.

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@kidddrocks

My health care team is focused on urology. I would not ask them an ortho question.

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I think your health care team in any area can forward/request/questions to ortho or other area since Mayo is a multidisplinary patient centered healthcare system. At least that's been my experience at Rochester Mayo Clinic and using the patient portal. I was just thinking it may be an easy option and worth a try.

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@kidddrocks

My health care team is focused on urology. I would not ask them an ortho question.

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@kidddrocks I wanted to chime in and say that the doctor you saw at Mayo is your primary contact there, and they will refer you to other specialists as needed, so it is perfectly acceptable to ask for a referral to another department. I was a spine surgery patient on my first visit to Mayo. 2 years later, I asked the spine surgeon to refer me to a pulmonologist for a return visit which he did. Then a couple years later, I broke my ankle, and asked my spine surgeon for a recommendation, and he sent me to a good ortho trauma surgeon at Mayo for surgery, and I had a phone call from the ortho's assistant and an appointment for consult 2 days later within an hour of my asking for help. I had a surgery date scheduled 2 days after my consult because of the protocol of waiting for Covid test results before surgery. My spine surgeon also said that he would trust his own family's care to this orthopedic surgeon, and that was good enough for me because my care was excellent with my spine surgeon, and I valued his opinion. I had one chance to get it right for my recovery and just didn't know where to find an excellent surgeon, so coming back to Mayo took that worry away.

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Thanks Jennifer. I am a retired critical care RN and just find it odd to ask my urologist for an ortho referral. It just doesn’t make sense especially in my case. I need a guy (if I even proceed) that is meticulously specialized in the complex revision I require. In my mind I don’t think a urologist would be aware of that certain specific surgeon. This is coming from my frame of reference, medically speaking. I might be wrong though!

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