ORIF (Open reduction internal fixation) surgery on LE affected leg.

[River83]

Has anyone else had ORIF surgery on an LE affected leg, if so what have your experiences been like?

I had an accident last November and ended up with an unstable fracture in my right ankle. This required ORIF surgery which involved a plate and screws on the outside and screws and a pin on the inside. As a result of the surgery I was unable to put any compression on the leg for around 8 weeks, had a plaster cast on and was none weight bearing for 6 weeks of those 8.

I now have the majority of the swelling in my leg back under control, however the ankle is still far more swollen than it was prior to my accident. The surgeon tells me that the LE will not be helping and the LE nurse tells me that the surgery will have affected it and I shouldn't expect much more reduction.

If anyone else has had a similar experience, I'd be pleased to hear about it.

[Lynora]

Are you back in compression? Is it Primary Lymphoedema? Can the lymphoedema nurse provide MLD to try and help reduce the residual post-treatment swelling to a more manageable state?

[River83 in reply to Lynora]

I've been back in class 3 compression since around 8 weeks after surgery and overall the swelling is under control.

I've had secondary LE since 2012 following surgery and radiotherapy on my right thigh.

Unfortunately there is no MLD available in my area, just check ups and compression prescriptions. I have seen a private LE nurse recently and tried the Lymphopress system which didn't seem to make an awful lot of difference - in fairness, I only had the one session.

[Chocolate-e-clare]

As a Physio, I'd say to anyone post ORIF of the ankle to expect the swelling to take 1-2 years to reduce (and it may always be larger due to bony re-growth during fracture healing). It's great that you're back in compression. Keep up exercising to strengthen muscles and use your calf muscle pump. If you can, massage around the scars daily to help the skin soften and stretch. And, as always, exercising in the water is great - just walking laps - for pain relief, stretching and the benefits of hydrostatic compression (having your foot deeper will put more pressure on it). So walk in neck-deep water for maximum compression - or just stand at the edge of the pool and do standing-on-toes exercises.