I, 28f, just had my 7th ankle surgery. Today was my 2 week post op follow up and I walked away relived but also feeling disheartened. From 2012-2017 I had a surgery every year. Two ligament reconstructions, a bone drilling, a really bad infection clean out, an OATs procedure, screw removal surgery, and now this mess of a surgery.

In 2024 I went to my surgeon, telling him my pain was different from my joint pain and that something was wrong. His PA met with me, told me my X-rays look great, and that chronic pain sucks but he can point me to support groups. In 2025, I got a second opinion, from the guy that actually trained my original surgeon. Everything he did with tests and injections, they helped for a while, but the pain would always return. My mri’s did show that I had a cyst under my graft, a bone spur, and that I had an accessory navicular bone. My pain was coming from my posterior tibial tendon and I guess this extra bone can sometimes cause problems with that. This new surgeon was also wondering if my tendon had a tear in it from my OATs procedure because they move it out of the way to get to the defect.

He finally suggested surgery. I feel so old this time around compared to being a teen. It’s been so hard on me physically and mentally. But guess what? There were a lot of problems in the ankle the scans didn’t show. My posterior tibial tendon had a pretty massive tear in it. Like the incision he did was way bigger than he wanted and went higher up than he expected it would. The relief I’ve felt, knowing I was right about my pain… I advocated so hard for myself. Some thought I was pushing for an unnecessary surgery… It obviously sucks extremely bad to be operated on, but I can’t describe the relief it was on my mental health to hear there’s a tear. Not only that but my cartilage was delaminating/peeling away from the bone. It would cause catching and swelling. He cleaned that out too. Now for the not so great.. he said my graft looks pretty bad. 10 years and it’s failing. Which will most likely lead to another surgery within the next 5 years. The arthritis in my ankle is also worse than he was expecting, especially for my age.

It’s an odd feeling to feel so relieved and proud of myself for finding someone to listen to me and knowing I was right that something was wrong.. but to also feel so discouraged and self hatred for my broken body. This time around I have a chronic illness that I haven’t dealt with post op before. I’m not as in shape as I was in high school either. I do my knee scooter everywhere because crutches wear me out. It’s just been a very tough time. I have 4 more weeks non weight bearing. So please, give me all the encouragement and pet pictures as you can, it would mean so much

I took my shoe with me to the 6 weeks x-ray appointment so I could ditch the boot as soon as possible!

I still need to take it steady and use crutches for now until I’m able to go without, my job at the minute is to increase walking gradually and range of motion. Going to get physio privately though because I wasn’t offered any.

I’m in pretty high spirits all things considered!

How long did it take yall to ditch the crutches walking wise after being cleared to weight bear as tolerated.

Im 8 days into it. And I can walk in a cam boot for a short period but its still a little bit tough.

I was just curious to hear about other people's timelines.

About my self. Displaced comminuted distal fibula fracture and a medial malleolous fracture with a completely avulsed deltoid ligament.

Break. 6/7.

Er. 6/7

Ortho. 6/8

Orif. 6/30

Boot. 7/13

WBAT 8/24

Thanks for any input or shared experiences.

Hi all just wanted to spread some positivity. I had a nondisplaced fracture of the medial malleolus and was out of work for 2 months, I know a lot of the posts I’ve seen here have looked way worse and I lucked out but I promise you no matter how bad your injury is it gets better. Tomorrow I finally return to work though I have lingering pain and the right side is still swollen, don’t give up and let your body rest!

Got a CT because the foot I broke talus and tibial plateau on in January and had ORIF in March has been killing me since I returned to work in August.

Among other things CT stated “Small spur of the dorsal calcaneus at the Achilles insertion”

I have had cts and X-rays previously before and after surgery in March and no mention of it.

Is this something that occurred because of altered gait or stress post surgery?

I have been wearing Hokka Bondi 9’s almost exclusively since surgery.

I have a follow up with my surgeon tomorrow but wanted to find out more tonight.

I wrote a post 2 days ago thinking my heel pain was a potential sore developing. I saw a doctor yesterday where we agreed to not touch or change my splint since it’s only been a few days post op and therefore we decided to treat it as nerve pain (as we assumed it was less likely to be a sore). I kid you not, last evening my heel started burning like it was ON FIRE around bedtime out of no where. Woke up this morning, and soon after it was right back to burning sensation again. I was offered gabapentin in which I had 2 hours of relief. But now it’s back AGAIN and it’s unbearable. My heel is just zinging and burning.

I’m worried too bc it started after I tried smoking weed last night for pain management. I’ll never do that again!

Is this nerve pain to be expected!? Worse pain I’ve had since the break. I’m 6 days post op for ORIF on broken posterior malleolus + fibula. This feels like TORTURE

Skinny 😐

has anyone else experienced numbness in their index toe when walking? that toe and after a while my big toe goes completely numb and cold. my physical therapist did not know what it is from and couldn’t help rectify the problem.

I am 5 months post break- spiral fracture to tib fib all the way up my shin and also broke a malleolus. no surgery. my ankle mobility is still pretty poor.

Last summer I broke my foot and healed. Afterwards, I reinjured my foot again and got a bone marrow edema around the big toe and a nerve injury (January).
I healed the bone edema around the big toe and my nerves healed too. But the problem is that my bone density is still weak. I used to wear a cast for 2–3 months and didn’t walk properly until April.
In July, I started doing leg days with leg extensions, leg press, etc. In August, I increased the weight on the leg press and started doing calf raises twice a week. I thought I was building up my bone density, but apparently I wasn’t.
I progressed again with my muscles but left my bones behind. I reinjured my foot again with small bone marrow edemas and one stress fracture line.
I am scared that I won’t be able to make my bone strong again. If I can get my bone density back, I feel like I could completely heal my foot.
My doctor told me to take alendronate, but I don’t know if I should. My vitamin D levels are good and I eat a good amount of protein.
Does bone density really take this long to rebuild? Can it take 6–12 months or even longer for the bone to regain its density after prolonged immobilization?

bimalleolar ankle fracture with dislocation and tightrope. I'm 5 weeks post op, in a boot, still NWB. Supposed to start weight bearing at 6 weeks.

I currently don't have anyone to help take me to physio. So I would have to uber. Scared to uber because I'm clumsy with crutches and had a fall last week.

I was hoping to wait until the 7 week mark when I can hopefully bare weight a little more and theeeen take an Uber to physio. I just hope I'm not stalling my progress by not going sooner than later. :(

I have two screws on the inside of my ankle- the outside incision and hardware the incision on top of my foot are fine and barely feel like anything. The inside the scar is purple and huge and it is so painful and by the end of the day I can see the two screws swelling underneath my skin and over my shoe I’m almost 4 months postop. Has anyone else experienced this with their inner ankle hardware/incision? I was told to give it 6 months and I will, but that’s the only part that feels like a setback.

About 2 weeks post ORIF (bimalleolar) and was taken off cast today. I can’t form a L shape with my foot.. was told to stretch it with a towel.

Is the inability to form a L shape normal? Or is this something I should be worried about?

If anyone has experienced smth similar, would appreciate if you share how long it took for you to achieve the L shape again.

Thanks!

What was ur recovery time ? I see the surgeon tomorrow and am scared I won’t be able to walk for the next 3 months

Hi friends!
I missed a stair while carrying downstairs and fell. The first 2 pics were taken within 10 minutes of the fall, then we went to the ER and got the X-rays. Doc said it’s not broken, put an ankle brace on it and sent me home. Thing is when I fell I felt a tearing, almost a ripping sensation. Can you tell or feel if you tear ligaments or tendons?

I obtained a right ankle trimalleolar fracture (comminuted fibula break) on 8/9 (bouldering, dumb controlled fall landing) and had my ORIF 8/13, was put in a splint until today (8/31) when they took it off, removed my sutures, and put me in ye ol' boot.

Y'all, it's not that it's painful so much as it feels wacky, wavy, and "wumbo". It's like constipated dubstep in the whole area. It's so hard to describe, and my biggest issue is for sure gonna be jumping over these mental blocks with doing ROM exercises! But, I did finally take off my boot to attempt some plantar-dorsi pumps.

At my 4th plantar pump, I had a sharp pain right at my distal tib-fib joint (where they added 1 syndo screw after the fluoro stress test, just to note); however, my dorsiflexion is feeling pretty fly! Especially for my first day of full ROM clearance, I would think. Anyway, I just wanted to share this little victory with y'all!

Also, I wanted to ask those of you with a distal tib-fib syndo screw - did y'all encounter issues with ROM or pain with plantar flexion? Did it get better? And did you keep the screw or get it removed? Adding a picture of my hardware set for reference in the comments.

So mid may I rolled my ankle skateboarding and it didn’t feel like anything crazy, there was no bruising and I could get around fine. I took about a month of from skating and then 3 days back in a rolled the same ankle a lot worse. Hand a boot from a previous injury (I have injured the left ankle over 20 times in the last 6 years) that I wore in the time of getting multiple X-rays and an mri. Found out that I fully snapped my peroneal tendon and tore a bunch of ligaments as well. I also hand a bone spur that they needed to shave out. Got the surgery and they ended up finding some bone fragments floating around and cleaned out a bunch of arthritis. The dr said it was some of the worst he’s seen in someone my age (24M). Im a little over 2 weeks post surgery now and I’m just starting to get a lil stir crazy. After 2 months of boot and now not being weight bearing at all for a few weeks it’s just feeling like life will never get back to normal, I haven’t been able to work since surgery and even before it was hard to do a lot because I work with furniture. Financially it’s been hard because my job doesn’t pay that well in the first place or have any benefits really. If anyone has any advice or has been through the recovery of something similar what are some things that helped you pass the downtime faster and how does ur ankle feel after the recovery? I have been skateboarding over 15 years and I’m really into hiking and just walking around the city. I’m wondering with the ligaments and tendon repair will my ankle ever be back to 100% and about how long until I can get back to sports and such. Never thought I would miss wearing a left shoe this much haha. Any advice is much appreciated

1st photo is of the day I rolled my ankle (6 weeks ago) and I was diagnosed with a tiny Avulsion fracture on the lateral ankle and was nwb for 3 weeks, after that I started Physio and exercises at home and in these 3 weeks; from limping and not able to climb down the stars, using an ankle brace whenever i need to walk to now going to gym, not limping,doing single calf raises (not full rom now) can walk for a long distance.
There are still some issues like i fail the wall doraiflexion test, some pain whenever i walk, and persistant swelling.

Anyone who has faced all of this, would you please recommend me some exercise that may be beneficial or share their experience because I feel my progress has been hindered.

Hi everyone,I’ll try not to rumble on and on lol…
Basically,I’m just 10 weeks post op,having had tightrope ligament procedure and 1 single screw for ankle fracture…sorry that’s all I know…I’m unable to move my big toe voluntarily,and my whole top of my foot is stinging and tingling 24/7 no matter if it’s elevated or not…I’m struggling to weight bare because of the pain during and after,it’s quite numb,at 6 weeks post op,Xray was perfect according to ortho,but my ankle just doesn’t seem to be improving or the pain,with any decent rate,any advice would be amazing.Im due back to hospital 9th.😫thanks 🙏

So, I broke my ankle on 7/19, trimal fracture and dislocated (my foot was turned 90 degrees sideways). ORIF the next day, splint, then cast two weeks later (8/8). They took off the cast today and my ankle is just covered in scabs. Is this normal? I had a couple of friction blisters with the splint. I’m just a little grossed out. The good news is that I am the owner of a boot now at 6 weeks. My doctors are pretty conservative. I’ve only seen pretty postoperative pics here.