So, those seeking surgical treatment for ankle arthritis, basically, have two big options with some smaller procedures that we do for very mild arthritis. The smaller procedures are removing bone spurs that may be impinging at the ankle. Those are relatively minor procedures, and that's done for very mild arthritic conditions. If you have severe arthritis at the ankle, there are basically two modalities of treatment which are available. There's the gold standard, which has been the best pain relief operation that we've had for years, which is to do an ankle fusion or an ankle arthrodesis. This procedure involves taking the cartilage out of the joint and placing the tibia bone to the talus bone, which is the first bone in the foot, and holding them with screws until your body bridges them with bone, and they heal completely across.
If you can imagine, when the joint is no longer there, the patient doesn't have the pain anymore from the joint which was hurting them. What's causing the pain in the first place is that loss of cartilage, and the bone being angry underneath, because it's still being abnormally loaded and moved against. And, when it becomes one bone, the pain goes away on a consistent basis. Usually, patients are concerned about the motion loss with an ankle fusion procedure. Most patients, believe it or not, walk almost normally. And, if you looked at someone in my waiting room, you probably couldn't tell that they had an ankle fusion procedure done. Surprisingly, there's about 15 degrees of range or motion that's maintained through the foot, and that's what people end up walking through, and, actually, doing very well after these procedures.
