Greatest Fear in Bunion Surgery Addressed

Greatest fear in bunion surgery comes from hearing stories about the pain and agony of someone who knows   of someone, who heard of someone, etc who had bunion surgery and it was the worse pain ever.

In the past foot surgery can be painful, but that is a thing of the past. 

How we now decrease the discomfort or even eliminate post operative pain is a multi pronged approach. 

1) preoperative IV NSAIDs or oral NSAIDs barring allergies and kidney issues

2) preoperative anesthesia with a nerve block despite the type of other anesthesia used such as Sedation or general anesthesia. 

3) careful incision planning

4) careful soft tissue handling to minimize trauma and collateral soft tissue damage

5) intricate closure of tissue to minimize bleeding

6) post operative long lasting anesthetic that can give up to 8 hours = of numbness.    

7) post operative steroid injection to decrease inflammation 

8) post operative pain medication both narcotics and none narcotics

Most of our patients report a pain scale of  zero to three out of ten (most pain) at their post operative visit.