Foot deformities or hallux valgus or bunions in the common language is a misunderstood surgery in Greece. Many doctors, due to the fact that this operation is performed bloodlessly, with easy access and just a small incision made, people consider it to be an easy surgery. Patients won’t decide to undergo this surgery, because they hear that this operation usually fails, that it has severe postoperative pain and that the deformity is re-created.
And they are not wrong.
What they’ve heard are due to poor surgical techniques on behalf of the doctors and a lack of experience on this particular surgery.
Correcting foot deformities is a surgery that with the proper technique by experienced physicians gives an excellent result, which utterly satisfies the patient.
I will try to give answers to the frequently asked questions of the sufferers.
- If we perform a mere removal of the exostosis (the bone that sticks out) of the hallux valgus, there will be a visual improvement of the foot, the operated patient will soon be walking but the big toe will continue to be deformed in the following years. This method of surgical treatment is simple but utterly useless. The correct operation also requires moving the head of the metatarsal.
- In order to get a proper functional rehabilitation of the foot, other possible deformities of the fingers must be simultaneously corrected in order to avoid the pain created by them when walking.
- With regard to the pain of the sufferer immediately after the surgery, which is extremely intense, it can be treated with special techniques (ring block). With the use of these, the operated person is not expected to receive more than 2 Lonarid pills after the surgery
Our long-term experience on the specific surgeries, has allowed us to modify the techniques we used in the Royal United Hospital in Bath, when we were working with J. Kirkup. Today while our surgeries are more complex than the average and we deal with the complete foot deformities, allowing the operated person to walk after the second day, with the rationale that the foot of the operated person must be shaped while he/she is walking. This is combined with the techniques of treatment of the pain. We believe that we should not use plates, bone screws, wires or other stabilization materials. All these materials have a negative impact during walking. In addition, we do not use boots or work shoes postoperatively.
Finally, we are totally opposed to removing the metatarsal heads because this creates major disabilities and we’ve replaced the specific surgery with easier techniques, which in addition leave no disability.
We are at your disposal for anything you may need
