Ankle issues for those who cannot have surgery

Not everyone is healthy enough for ankle reconstructive surgery. In fact, in Naples the average age of our patients is 65, and that can infer more often than not that some form of co morbidity exists in the summation of medical concerns which may complicate  the option to electively undergo any type of surgery. Some patients are fresh off of a myocardial infarction, others are too weak with congestive heart failure and kidney disease. The rest are very poor surgery candidates secondary to leg circulation which cannot be improved by vascular intervention. Yet this category of patient is still able to be treated for ankle and foot pains, because we can make a mold of your ankle and foot, and create a custom molded ankle/foot orthosis. This is the most common nonsurgical treatment to manage chronic pain from abnormal motion and deformity in patients who are just not candidates for any reconstructive surgery, and this allows their relatively limited mobility to be achieved with less pain and allows some patients to avoid needing a wheelchair as a primary modality of transportation. Often times, this brace will take 3-6 weeks to be available, so we offer many off the shelf intermediate bracing options for this cornerstone of patient population, as well as PRP injections and physical therapy options as well. We are not only foot and ankle surgeons at FFLC, we are also very naturalistic and have had good success with nonsurgical management of most of our patient's chief complaints regarding pain in the ankle and foot.

Different ankle concerns will require different bracing options, but we are well equipped to use whichever means are necessary to keep you walking.