Fortunately, the answer is yes in the vast majority of cases. From the simplest to the most serious, in more than 90% of cases we have solutions. From a simple hammer toe to a major foot deformity can be treated with surgical techniques that, used correctly, can change and improve a person’s life. This requires, on the part of the foot doctor Baltimore md, a great experience achieved with years of work and training that should never end.

What role does minimally invasive surgery play in all this?

It represents a great help and we use it whenever possible. We refer to percutaneous surgery and foot and ankle arthroscopy.

These surgical techniques allow us to treat the patient’s disease minimizing what we call surgical damage through small incisions and with the help of special instruments, optical systems that are inserted into the joints and devices that technology makes increasingly sophisticated and with higher profits.

The benefits for the patient are enormous, both in the reduction of pain and in the recovery time or, in many cases, in the improvement in the efficacy of the treatment with greater possibilities of cure.

What are the limits of this surgery?

Unfortunately, not all pathologies can be treated in this way. Minimally invasive surgery, specifically percutaneous surgery, is especially useful in forefoot deformities: bunions, hammer toes, metatarsalgia, etc.

On the other hand, arthroscopy and endoscopy are used in plantar fasciitis, Morton’s neuroma and in many ankle diseases: osteochondritis, ligament rupture (instability) or Achilles tendon pathology.

The foot and ankle specialist traumatologist must have comprehensive training and be able to use these minimally invasive techniques whenever possible and, at the same time, traditional surgery when the case so requires. This is our standard of action in the Foot and Ankle Surgery Unit”.

Can all bunions (hallux valgus) be operated by percutaneous surgery?

In more than 80% of cases this is perfectly possible. Only in cases of very serious deformities, we prefer traditional open surgery.

This 80% of bunions benefit from a process that the patient himself describes as painless in more than 95% of cases and, what is more important, with a functional result that is absolutely comparable to open surgery. This is not what we say, it is what all the scientific papers that compare both techniques and that are published in the most important journals in the world specialized in foot and ankle surgery say it.

Finally, what can you comment on postoperative pain?

In the mentality of patients, foot surgery continues to have a reputation for being very painful, which comes from ancient times and, truly, until the end of the 20th century it was, and very painful.

Currently, that the patient does not feel any pain is one of our main objectives. A patient who does not feel pain recovers much better.

This is achieved thanks to the minimally invasive techniques that we apply, but also to the enormous improvement in anesthetic techniques, especially local anesthesia, capable of leaving the foot asleep for 24 hours, allowing the patient to lead a normal life with practically no need for analgesic medication.