Chronic Foot and Ankle Pain

Shown above is a 57-year-old fireman with worsening chronic foot/ankle pain and swelling. The ankle was unstable secondary to loose ankle ligaments from several ankle sprains from prior years and exacerbated by the stress placed on the ankle from fireman duties. The fireman also had a collapsed arch, poor heel position that wasn’t properly under the leg, and an abducted foot. We performed an ankle arthroscopy to clean out ankle joint scar tissue, reconstructed the ankle ligaments by using the Arthrex internal brace.

For the foot, we lengthened the calf tendon to decrease stress across the foot and remove this deforming force. In addition, we lengthened the outside of the foot with a 1cm bone graft block and stabilized the arch with a Navicular-Cuneiform fusion. Lastly, we shifted the heel back into anatomic alignment under the leg. The fireman is back to work, pain-free and better than before!