Planning for Bunion and Lesser Toe Surgery

This article covers the late stage of the bunion timeline, when surgery is a real option and the question is how to prepare for it. It also covers the smaller toes.

Surgery is not a cosmetic exercise

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital is blunt about it: "Bunion and/or lesser toe surgery is not just a cosmetic procedure and you could be swapping a deformed PAINLESS foot for a PAINFUL cosmetically pleasing foot."

That sentence is the reason to plan early. Readers in Arlington Heights who are thinking about surgery should hold it up against what they actually want from the operation.

The smaller toes

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital also explains the smaller toes: "Various names (claw toe, hammer toe, mallet toe, curly toe) are used to describe the deformed lesser toes (smaller toes); they often develop as a result of a bunion deformity but can also occur without a bunion."

For one of those names in detail, HSS offers hammertoe information for patients.

What changes next, and what signals it early

After surgery the question becomes recovery. Start planning as soon as the bump or a smaller toe limits what you can do on an ordinary day. Do not wait until a decision is forced.

What to decide ahead of time

Decide what you want the surgery to change, and what you will give up in the meantime. Compare approaches on the same terms. Take the measures used in a systematic review of minimally invasive bunion surgery and ask how every option you are offered scores on each.

A recommendation for the stage after

Plan the recovery as carefully as the operation. Ask your surgeon what the weeks afterward will require of you, and arrange work and help at home before the date, not after it.