Avoid Limping After Surgery

Hi everyone,

It has officially been over a year since my two Lisfranc surgeries and my foot has surprised me! I think I have gotten pretty lucky and have not had much for pain, and have been able to do quite a bit of activities without too many issues in my foot so far. I have been careful and I have been slow though with the introduction of more intense activities because if I am honest...I am a bit scared to have this happen again (not walking for 6 months, not being able to do any sort of running whatsoever, getting soooo out of shape, etc). I have been uber cautious because I never want to have two surgeries on my foot again nor do I want to do anything to jeopardize my ability to walk in the future. I don't want to be afraid of life, but I do think it may be smart to be cognizant that this foot needs to last me the next 40 or 50 years...THAT is hard to tell.

Something that I worked on and that was reinforced to me often was mobility. Especially after surgery, the body can stiffen due to immobility or scar tissue formation. And mobility can quickly go backwards if not continually worked on. During my recovery, I had plenty of TV time. I would set a timer on my phone to do the ABCs for my ankle mobility at least 3x per day. I also would stretch my calf and foot. In the beginning, I would never push anything too far because I did not want to injure something, but towards the end of my recovery I very clearly knew my limits. I think having a nice balance of resting and recovery is optimal for healing.

Prior to this injury, I had been in college athletics and I had no problem with ankle flexion and doing a deep overhead squat. I cannot express enough how important mobility is in the phases in healing. Now, my foot, ankle and calf can still tighten up and stiffened but it is not bad because I worked on this.

On 6/5/23, I have a video where I started doing the ABCs to the beat of quick techno music. Looking back at how slow and remembering how hard it was for me to keep up, it's crazy how quickly you lose that muscle to mind connection. It does come back pretty quickly though as the body is pretty resilient.

I also recommend working on stability and balance as soon as you’re weight bearing and as pain allows. I could not help myself when I was nonweightbearing and I did single leg exercises throughout my recovery. If you were like me and/or there is a high potential that you have an imbalance now due to the injury anyway, I really recommend....one legged exercises to find out the imbalances and to even them out accordingly. The last thing you need is another injury because you did too much too soon or had an imbalance. I know that I felt some strain in my knees when I got back to weight bearing just from not using those tendons, ligaments and muscles in that way.

Some of the exercises that I did at home were: leg extensions and leg curls with bands. With both of these exercises, sometimes I was unable to do them because my foot would get "finicky" or more sensitive. Did you know that you flexed your foot during these exercises? I never noticed that! But you do, and I know this because when I would try to do my workout my foot would flex just slightly and would cause pain at times. This pain was typically determined by the previous day and if I was walking on my foot too much with the crutches or not.

As a check-in, on 6/5/23, I'm was still limping when I tried to walk quickly. If I nonchalantly walked slow, then I did not limp and no one would ever know. At this point, I had made a note, "This is to be worked on."

The main point is that you don't want a limp because then you are putting more pressure on your knees and mainly your hips; therefore, you will get more wear from your hips from walking uneven. Plus then you will make it a habit and habits can be hard to break.