Ankle Update

So there have been a few more twists in the adventures of Karen's ankle. I went to my pre-op appointment last week where my doctor was going to read my MRI and CT scan. He determined that it is inconclusive what exactly is giving me pain (either the extra bone or the sprained ligament) so therefore he wouldn't perform the surgery. He then told me to wear a walking boot for 8 weeks to heal the ligament. I obviously was not very pleased with this conclusion! I went from being able to have a simple surgery to fix my problem to not even knowing what is wrong with my ankle anymore!

I decided to get a second opinion from my teammate's ankle doc, whom she really likes and recommended. So this new doctor took a look at all of my images and took a few more x rays. She determined that the ligament (which I've been wearing this stupid boot for a month now) is not what is giving me pain (which is what I've been sayin the whole time! I didn't even know that ligament was injured). She also pointed out chips of bone in the ankle joint which have come off of my tibia and fibula (the two leg bones that make up your shin), but those aren't the problem either. She thinks that the extra bone definitely broke off of my talus, and has reattached itself. However, it's possible it could have reattached itself in a different position, therefore getting in the way of my ankle's range of motion and causing me pain. The procedure to fix this would be to simply remove the extra bone, approximately 3 weeks recovery, which was the original surgery I had planned on getting all season.




OR, she thinks that I actually fractured my talus and since it went undiagnosed it wasn't allowed to heal properly. Normally, bones take 6 weeks to heal, especially in young people. It's possible that it never fully healed and the blood supply could be cut off to the bone (bones have a lot of blood vessels running through them). She said worst case scenario, if I keep running and doing high impact things my talus may actually collapse on itself. Scary. The procedure to fix this would be to actual drill into the bone, which would stimulate bone growth and ossification. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that would mean at least 6 weeks in a non weight bearing cast, plus more recovery time on top of that.

So, next week I am getting a bone scan. I wasn't really sure exactly what this entailed, so I went to WebMD. "For a bone scan, a radioactive tracer substance is injected into a vein in the arm. The tracer then travels through the bloodstream and into the bones. This process may take several hours. A special camera takes pictures of the tracer in the bones. This helps show cell activity and function in the bones. Areas that absorb little or no amount of tracer appear as dark or "cold" spots, which may indicate a lack of blood supply to the bone (bone infarction) or the presence of certain types of cancer. Areas of rapid bone growth or repair absorb increased amounts of the tracer and show up as bright or "hot" spots in the pictures. Hot spots may indicate problems such as arthritis, the presence of a tumor, a fracture, or an infection."
So based upon the bone scan, the doctor says she will be able to determine what treatment will solve my problem. I went to the hospital today to pick up the initial x rays I had done the night of the injury. The two men working there were somewhat confused as to why I needed x rays that were taken over a year ago.... I told them it confused me, too! Hopefully these can help rule out some more possibilities of the mysterious ankle injury.