Posted 6/13/2010 5:30 PM (GMT 0)
Hello new to this forum. A little history. Had flat feet all my life, never caused any problems, was in the Navy for 4 years on a submarine, feet where fine. In 1996 at age 46 I woke up one morning to incredible pain in my left foot. Took me three years and nine doctors to find someone who knew what was wrong, but by that time my right foot was also in pain. I had whats called Posterior Tibial Tendon Insufficiency/Deficiency (PTTI/PTTD), or acquired adult foot deformity. I finally found a surgeon at the hospital for special surgery in NYC. When he told me what he wanted to do I told him he was crazy, and he told me "you'll know when it's time". He basically wanted to break my heel, reshape it, bolt it back in, bone graft from a cadaver into the outside of my foot, move tendons around, etc. And at this time my arches had completely collapsed, and my heels had deformed outward. So by 2005 I had had enough, I found a forum online on this problem (yahoo groups) and was able to communicate with people who had the same thing as me. So I had the first surgery in August of 2005, this surgery involved non-weight bearing (NWB) for around 12 weeks, and full recovery was a full year. My first surgery was good, so in late August of 2006 I had my right foot done also. The problem right away was that the first foot wasn't up to handling my full weight. (I'm 6'5", 237 lbs). It was all downhill from there. By 2008 the doctor told me to try pain management. So I've been on pain management since then. Lately the meds aren't helping as much as they used to, and I have pain in my feet all the time. Sometimes it even wakes me up from a deep sleep (which is something that has never happened before). I can not stand or walk for any length of time, if I do, I pay for it.
I've tried acupuncture, therapy, I have a tens unit (which helps but only when it's on, no lasting help), lidocaine patches, various creams, and the pain meds (oxy, and percocets).
At my last visit to the Pain doctor, he asked how I was doing and I told him terrible. I told him that with the weather changes I'd been having days where I'd have the tens unit on, lidocaine patches, the voltaren cream, 2 #10 percocets, advil, aspirin, and I was still in pain for a couple of hours a day. He suggested a neurostimulator, I've never heard of one and when I did a google search, I found this forum, so.... Now we're up to date.
Sorry for the long post. Looking for others with experience with either my problem PTTI and chronic pain, or the neurostimulator.
Thanks
Dave