When your toes bend oddly or are no longer able to move altogether, there’s a good chance you have hammertoes. Hammertoes not only look strange, but they can also cause pain, swelling, tenderness, and general discomfort around the front of your foot.
Podiatrists Thomas Rambacher, DPM, FACFAS, FAPWCA, and Amber O’Connor, DPM, from Podiatry Hotline Foot & Ankle in Mission Viejo, California, recommend surgical intervention to correct late-stage, rigid hammertoes. Find out how minimally invasive surgery permanently corrects hammertoes and leaves them looking and feeling great in time for sandal season.
There are two types of hammertoes, flexible and rigid. Flexible hammertoes are a less severe condition that causes your toes to be overly flexible.
Most of the time, you don’t need surgery on flexible hammertoes. Instead, our team focuses on conservative care that relieves pain and swelling and prevents your hammertoes from worsening.
Sometimes, flexible hammertoes progress to a rigid, immobile state. At this point, you won’t be able to move your toes at all.
The only treatment for rigid hammertoes is surgery. Our team typically recommends minimally invasive surgery for rigid hammertoes to restore toe function and mobility.
Occasionally, we also recommend surgery on flexible hammertoes if they’re causing pain or open sores that aren’t responding to conservative care.
Hammertoe surgery can usually be performed in a minimally invasive way. You still get surgical incisions during minimally invasive surgery, but they’re much smaller and less intrusive than those used in traditional surgery.
The benefits of minimally invasive surgery include:
With minimally invasive surgery, you can generally expect to be back on your feet without worrying about complications that can increase recovery time. Your toes will function well and have very little post-operative swelling or scarring in time for sandal season.
Our team performs a few different types of hammertoe surgeries. The most common techniques are joint resection, fusion, and tendon transfer.
Joint resection involves removing one part of the bone at the end of your toe joint after making a tiny incision. A pin holds your toe in place temporarily until your joints and tendons get used to the new positioning.
Fusion requires one team to remove both ends of your fused toe joint while moving tendons and ligaments. Screws permanently keep the corrected toe joint in position.
The tendon transfer technique requires moving tendons from the top of your toe to the bottom. This readjusts the toe without removing any bones.
Our team does every type of hammertoe procedure using minimally invasive techniques. After minimally invasive surgery, patients can often start wearing supportive, comfortable shoes a few weeks after the procedure and other shoes after a couple of months.
If you have rigid hammertoes, you can have toes that look and feel great by this summer with minimally invasive surgery. Contact us to learn more and make an appointment.
