Six Months After Total Ankle Replacement

I wanted to share my experience with total ankle replacement (TAR), especially to hear from people who are further along in their recovery.

My ankle history started with a severe open fracture of my right tibia and fibula in December 2023. I went through several surgeries afterward, including ORIF, later hardware removal, and other procedures to address the damage and post-traumatic arthritis.
Eventually, because of the severity of the arthritis and damage to the ankle joint, I had a total ankle replacement on January 2026.

I am now about six months post-op, and overall I feel that the surgery has been very successful.

Mechanically, everything seems to be doing very well. My recent X-rays show that the components are stable, with no signs of loosening or other obvious problems, and I feel that the ankle itself is functioning well. I can walk quite a bit and have never felt that my recovery has gone backward.

My main concern at this point is persistent swelling/edema and some scar tissue around the ankle, which I believe are responsible for most of the discomfort I still experience.

My pain is generally around 1–3 out of 10. It is not severe, but it is still noticeable when walking, and the ankle remains visibly swollen.
What worries me a little is hearing that a large part of TAR recovery happens during the first six months. Since I am already past that point, I sometimes wonder:
- Did any of you still have significant swelling or edema at 6–7 months?
- Did you still have mild pain when walking?
- Did you continue improving between months 6 and 12?
- At what point did the ankle finally start to feel more “normal” and the swelling noticeably decrease?
- Was your improvement gradual, or did you notice another significant change around months 8, 9, 10, or even 12?

I would especially love to hear from people who are one year or more after total ankle replacement and can look back at what their ankle felt like around the six-month mark.

I am very happy with the mechanical result of my replacement so far.

I am mainly trying to understand whether this residual inflammation, edema, and mild pain can still continue improving substantially during the second half of the first year.

Thank you to anyone willing to share their experience. I think hearing real recovery timelines from other TAR patients would be extremely helpful.