So, as far as hind foot arthritis goes, usually, what we're dealing with is a problem with malalignment, and this is usually related to a flatfoot or sometimes a high arch foot deformity. There are plenty of options prior to fusion of these joints in order to help the patient who has significant arthritis in their hindfoot from one of these two issues. What we'll do is we'll go in, we'll look at X-rays, we'll look at your foot position. We'll make sure that, if it shows significant arthritis on the X-ray, that a fusion procedure is probably your best option. If we find that there is only a mild amount of arthritis or no arthritis in these joints, then sometimes we can do joint sparing operations to help realign the foot, get the abnormal stress off the joints which are painful, and make you better without having to lose that side to side motion that occurs in the hindfoot.
