I just wanted to bring you up to date on my fibula/ankle health. Since my last post in May, I finished physical therapy but have continued to do 80 ankle bend reps of a triple folded green theraband daily. Consequently about six weeks ago I realized that my recovering right ankle was actually stronger than the left one. Since then I have been doing the 80 reps on BOTH ankles. Although strength is good, my recovering right ankle continued to be so sensitive to anything touching it that I have been limited to wearing shoes that are below the ankle. Even certain types of socks have been a problem. Dr Hinz warned me at the time of my surgery in March that I would likely want the plate and screws removed but I had not realized then just how much of a skin sensitivity issue was going to follow.
Well with about 18 inches of snow on the ground in Sunriver and boots out of the question, the plate and screws had to go! I had my hardware removal surgery last Thursday (Dec 16th) and I will be hobbling around in my big black theraboot for about another month. The incision area is still tender, but it is improving every day so I’m very optimistic. I’ll have my sutures removed on the 29th, I’ll post if there is any interesting news.
When I last posted it was still a mystery as to how I could have had normal Dexascans for years and at the same time had Dr. Hinz tell me that my bone felt somewhat soft. Mystery solved – my Dexascan results now show some osteopenia. I’m putting a picture of the results on the blog because hindsight I should have looked and seen the obvious; the densities (BMD) and T-Scores have been trending in that direction since 2000. As yet my hip still shows as normal but unless I can intervene with more resistance exercise, it is likely to dip into the wrong direction as well. The other mystery was, can some bones be denser than others? It is pretty clear from these results that the densities can be very different depending on which bones are scanned. I’ll be seeing my regular physician in January and I’ll let you know what she recommends as follow up.
Have a wonderful Christmas, ours will be pretty quiet.
