How To Know If You Might Need Ankle Replacement Surgery

14 January 2019
 Categories: , Blog

Share

If you have experienced ongoing problems with your ankle, you might be getting to the point where you are questioning if there will be the need for an ankle replacement surgery in your future. To help you determine if this is something that you may want to discuss with your podiatrist, you will want to examine the following points.

Your Daily Activities Are Limited

When even the simplest activity, such as walking, is starting to become too much for you to do before you start to experience a lot of pain, you will want to talk to your doctor about the possibility of an ankle replacement. It is not only pain that can bring you to this point. If walking even a little bit causes your ankle to swell or lock in one position, then you want to see what additional steps need to be done before you could qualify for an ankle replacement surgery. You do not want to wait too long as your condition may continue to get worse.

You Have Tried All The Other Options

While there are some treatment options out there, they might be the solution for your ankle problem. Therefore, if you have tried physical therapy, steroid and anti-inflammatory injections, and various other medications without enough relief from your symptoms, then it might be time to discuss surgery. Sure, there are some risks associated with any type of surgery, but you will want to weigh the possible benefits against the possible negatives to determine if it is right for you. If your ankle problem is likely to get a lot worse over time, having the ankle replacement surgery might be your best shot at making sure that you are going to be able to continue to do things as normally as possible.

The sooner you are able to start talking to your podiatrist about the possibility of an ankle replacement surgery, the sooner you can get the procedure done and the sooner you will start to live life again without so much ankle trouble. If you need additional tests or treatments completed before you can officially be a candidate for this type of surgery, you will want to get the process started. It would also be a good idea to talk with your insurance company to double-check what their requirements are in order for the ankle replacement surgery to be covered by your plan.