Many people will tell you that when their feet hurt, everything hurts. Maybe their shoes don’t fit right. They could be too tight, or they chose the wrong shoes for the activity they are doing. There are lots of reasons why your feet hurt. One common one is a bunion. If you have a painful bunion and are ready to do something about it, there are 4 types of bunion surgery.
What’s a Bunion?
Bunions are bony growths that develop slowly on the inside edge of your big toe joint. It pushes your big toe joint out of alignment where the base of your big toes meets your foot. In addition to being extremely painful, it is an unsightly looking deformity so much so that most people refrain from showing their bare feet. This joint is known as the metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint.
There are treatments to help relieve the symptoms, but only a bunionectomy surgery can permanently remove the growth, realign your foot, and relieve the pain.
Like many other medical issues, it is a progressive one and if you ignore it too long, it will become more difficult to treat.
What to Expect Prior to Surgery
Once you have found an experienced foot and ankle surgeon like Dr. Jonathan Hall, you will have a complete physical exam, blood tests, an EKG, X-rays, and possibly an MRI or CT scan to be sure you can physically have the surgery.
Follow all the pre-surgical directions.
After your exam, Dr. Jonathan Hall will recommend the best type of bunionectomy for you.
Choosing the Right Type of Bunion Surgery for You
There are actually over forty kinds of bunion surgeries, but we will only focus on the most common, safest, and most effective types here.
Osteotomy
This surgery is often the best choice if you are a patient with poor bone quality and mild to moderate bunion deformity.
With this very common procedure, Dr. Jonathan Hall makes a few small incisions in the foot and toe bones, and uses non-metal screws or pins into the bones to align the big toe joint. This is minimally invasive using smaller incisions, providing a faster recovery, less pain, and less scarring.
Joint Fusion
This surgery is often the best choice for patients with arthritis and very severe bunion deformity
Dr. Jonathan Hall will remove any part of your big toe joint with arthritis that caused the bunion. The surgeon will place screws in the bones to hold them together, and the bones will fuse together as one as they heal. This surgery is usually only performed on patients with very severe bunions.
Lapidus
This surgery is often for patients with serious to severe bunion deformity, poor bone quality and for younger patients. It is considered the “gold standard” in bunionectomy.
The surgery begins with Dr. Jonathan Hall removing the bunion. The foot will be realigned by fuzing the joint between the long metatarsal bone in the middle of your foot and one of the small bones where your ankle meets your foot. I typically use the Lapiplasty system for this procedure.
This type of surgery is also excellent for those patients with hypermobility (can move too easily or too much).
Artificial Joint Implant
I don’t recommend this procedure for the toes. My recommendation for severe arthritis is fusion. For more mild arthritis a joint clean up procedure called cheilectomy could be done.
Bunion Surgery in Kirkland, WA
If you are suffering with pain from a bunion, contact board-certified foot & ankle orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Hall, MD at (425) 823-4000 to learn more about bunion surgery and which procedure is best for you.
Sources:
Minimally Invasive Bunion Surgery | Arthrex Bunionectomy (bunionpain.com)
