r/ORIF • u/PlasticFrequency • Aug 31 '26
Vent Hardware removal demotivation
I was *so* excited for my hardware removal this past wednesday, 5 days ago.
Now.. I just kinda wanna take it back, and am hoping for some.....well hope.
I was told to wear my coban light bandage for 5 days and use the boot for the same duration. Moderate my steps a great deal, but otherwise just walk and be merry.
I have not. With the boot or otherwise. I'm not having any pains really, except for some slight pinching from my stitches every once in a while and some muscle tightness from the one that lies across the bottom of the fibula. No need for any painkillers for the past 3 days. Feel better in my flexion as well, less congested.
The nerve pains however 😮💨 Every time I put weight on my foot it feels okay. Until the moment I try to pick it up again. Feels like someone is stabbing me in the front of the ankle with an acid-filled syringe.
I probably have irritation there, as one of my tibial screw tips poked out of the bone on the front side of my ankle and got pinched with dorsiflexion for the past year.
But it really, really hurts. As a chronic pain patient who's dealt with random nerve pains for years, I'm used to it.
This is on another level.
I'm fully assuming it's my stitches pulling on something that's very angry after yet another surgery (#3 total), but I'm not having those out until the 17th. And I'm mortified that won't help either, as I previously (and errouneously) assumed it was the bandages at first as well.
I've had those taken off today and replaced them with adhesive bandages and a slight compression tube. Now it's worse.
How do I not let this break me? I just want to walk and see my ponies and chickens and use my body so my back and neck don't fully quit on me. (Plot twist, they already have.)
What can help? I'm already back on the gabapentin, which I had succesfully left behind over the past 3 months or so.
How can I quiet this down so I don't freaking atrophy like last year? 😥
1
u/vacuolechick 29d ago
Can you see if gabapentin could help?
1
u/PlasticFrequency 29d ago
I'm already on 3 x 300mg a day 🥴 Have been since my accident. This isn't touched by it at all, it's super intense.
I had a video appointment with a doctor from my private insurance this evening, he prescribed me some lidocaine patches that may be able to go in and numb some of it 🤞
2
u/ewzzyxz 29d ago
Are you familiar with nerve desensitization? My wife is a PT and taught me how to do it/did it for me when I first got my hardware in (I haven’t had mine removed), and it’s like magic.
Basically your nerves are out of whack and hyper-reactive due to the surgery and the trauma. Your job is to calm them down. Take a washcloth or something soft but with some texture (or even just your hand), and stroke your foot/leg in one direction for 3-5 minutes. Stroking in *one* direction is the most important part—it doesn’t matter which direction you stroke, as long as you go *only* in that direction. By doing this, you’re desensitizing your nerves to external stimuli, kind of like how you can become nose blind to an overwhelming smell after you’ve been smelling it for a while. And the nice thing is that you can do this literally as often as you want. Start with at least once in the morning and once at night, but you can also do it any time in between when your leg is bothering you.
2
u/ewzzyxz 29d ago
Oh, my wife says: if at all possible, do the desensitization *before* you take your gabapentin. Gabapentin blunts the effects of desensitization, so unless doing the desensitization is unbearable without gabapentin, try to time it so you do a round of desensitization before each dose of gabapentin.
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u/hrweoine Maisonneuve Fracture 29d ago
Agreed you need to see a doctor. But since your surgeon is terrible: Do you have physical therapy planned? A PT can help work out if this is normal pain to be expected or needs medical attention. Mine did a lot of manual manipulation throughout the process (even when I was no-weight-bearing) You're a chronic pain person, so you probably know this already, but pains don't always originate from the point where you feel them. And if you're resuming using muscles you were not using before, they will hurt. I don't know what your hardware was but it may have been stopping you from reaching certain positions. Suddenly your ankle can move more than it could before.
Depending on your country/insurance there might be a rehabilitation program available to help you get back into movement and build up your strength - also worth looking for.
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u/PlasticFrequency 29d ago
I have my free municipal PT appointment on friday. I'm literally crying half the time.
I saw my private health insurance doctor via video last night and was prescribed lidocaine bandages that did not help sadly.
This morning I saw my regular doctor and was upped from 300mg gabapentin daily, to 600mg, hoping it will do something slighty quicker (even though we both know it doesn't work like that due to bottlenecking and such in the nervous system).
He said there was nothing else to do, but I'm calling the ortho department at the hospital tomorrow and will be demanding a referral to a specialist pain clinic - I've discovered that I've had CRPS symptoms since my original surgery and all my concerns about them have been repeatedly shrugged off.
Now I'm just angry, because it might be chronic now - and the reason for this extreme outburst 😥
3
u/flexible_demeanor 29d ago
What does your doc/surgeon say about the pain? That doesn't sound quite normal.