This is another update on my so called care from the NHS, this morning I went to Salford Royal Hospital for yet another appointment from an accident that i had 3 years ago and it is still not been sorted out, different so called specialists are saying the opposite to each other. I saw a different consultant today and he was very thorough which was good but the problem is he couldn't understand a word that I said, he looked at me as though I was a loony. He asked me what had happened and I told him and he had me walking up and down the room to see how I was walking and he told me to walk properly, I can't because I can't bend my foot and he knew this. He told me that I didn't have Complex Regional Pain Syndrome even though every single specialist that I saw said that I had. He sent me for another xray to see if he could see a break to my foot after 3 years I don't think so, low and behold there was no break, but he did find arthritis in my foot and that is why i can't bend it, I asked him why it never showed up in any of the other xrays that i had, he didn't know, I asked him was it because of the fall I had, he didn't know, did he know anything and this was a man who was a surgeon. So now I have to have an MRI scan to see if anything else shows up. I asked him what my outcome would be and he said I will be limping for the rest of my life and I would have to live with the pain, when I left his room I felt so depressed what life do I have now, I was very fit and active before and now I can't even walk properly and in severe pain all the time. This is the caring profession, MY ARSE. To top it all I have to go back to the same hospital which took me and my husband over an hour to get there. My question is can a bad fall cause severe arthritis in my foot, I also have it in my big toe on the same foot, I never received any treatment at all.
Update on my care?: This is another update on... - Pain Concern
Update on my care?
I have followed all your posts.
Isn't it time to move on with your life as so many of us do....or try.
The old words...don't look back you aren't going that way.....is damned hard but there does come a point when that chapter has closed. It will cause you mire pain in other ways, Concentrate on what you cam do. Anger is an over powering and wated energy.
As an oldish campaigner I could make your hair curl if I told you what is really happening with the NHS......
Take care, be strong, and use your energy wisely
x
Hi Banana5, I am trying my best to move on but it is hard when all this what happened isn't my fault. What we do know is the NHS are not fit for purpose and I am not the only one who has major problems with them. When I went to the hospital yesterday I was expecting to be told there is nothing else they can do, I didn't expect having yet another xray and being told that I now have arthritis. I NEVER had problems with my foot , I played walking football, in a mixed team, went to the gym most days, very fit and active and now I feel like an old lady who is wheelchair bound.
Can I just comment that old fractures are usually visible on X-rays. However, also you can get arthritis from an old injury.
This not something anyone can 'cure'. But exercises, special footwear (orthotics) and anti inflammatories can help ameliorate things.
Try to be positive about things and open minded.
I hope things get better for you.
Thank you for your reply. This should never have happened.
To answer your question, yes, damage to a foot can cause arthritis. I was warned when I was a teen and had surgery on my feet that it was likely that I would get early arthritis in them and I indeed did, my feet were ahead of the rest of my body by 10-15 years.
But, and this is why medicine is sometimes more an art than a science, not everyone will get osteoarthritis after damage. Everyone has different genetics and arthritis is driven by the genes, trigger by environmental things.
When a joint or bones get damaged the immune system will go into action and send what I like to think of as little Pacman type critters out to eat up the damage. Once the damage is cleared the immune system tells them to stand down again. But in some people the system doesn't get stood down and some of the little critters that sort out damage sort of keep going and start causing more damage.
Additionally, we also have loads of different genes that result in different conditions. So for instance I seem to have a set of genes that result in psoriatic arthritis as well as osteoarthritis caused by earlier joint damage. I also have something called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome that means that my joints move beyond what most people's joints do, which makes them more prone to damage.
So yes, a bad fall which caused damage to your foot could have speeded up the arthritis process in that foot. But that does not give the consultant who saw you the right to be so awful to you. He could have been much more compassionate and handled it very differently, explaining what might have been going on, not flatly denying what others have diagnosed, and actually coming up wtih a plan to move forward. This is what is known in the NHS as Personalised Care, but some front line clinicians haven't learned to do this yet!
I hear you on those long drives to hospitals too. The NHS keeps on about treating us closer to home, but it seems with hospital closures treatment is getting further away, both in the way they treat us and physically where they are treating us.
I hope you get some answers and some compassion soon!
Hi Imagine1, we have spoken before. Your appointment does not seem to have met your need, not unusual though. It is time to move forward, we can't really change the NHS unless we make complaints to patient & public participation groups. There are no miracle cures I have had Arthritis for forty years and have learn't to live with it, An injury can cause future arthritis, I felt like you after being left with mobility impairment for the rest of my life and arthritis does not fair any better its a chronic illness , with no cure as such, small levels of research into treatments and the only real steps forward are in self management of pain and disability. Arthritis in the big toe is common and can cause imbalance with falls, it will also cause an abnormal gait which causes muscle pain elsewhere Big toe arthritis can be Gout also which requires a different type of treatment. Broken bones normally still show on Xray in later years unless they were when you were a child . Have to agree anger won't help your emotional well being but it is normal when you have a loss and you have just learnt you have lost your previous good health & fitness. Main Question is how do you go forward???? One way might be to go on Arthritis Actions page for management of Arthritis &pain advice. Eventually you will learn that blame is pointless we can't change what happened can we.? Start thinking I want this to help me along and ask for it. Complain if your needs are not being met. Best Wishes.
Couldn't put it better myself, Regards Lynda
Yes, A bad fall or simple injury can cause arthritis so he is correct and why the previous X-ray didn’t show it that simply could be the people didn’t do the X-rays correctly (positioning of foot) or they just didn’t know how to read the results (believe it or not this isn’t uncommon)
I walked around for 8 months with severe pain in my foot had multiple X-rays which showed nothing…. Finally I went crazy on my doctor because I was tired of not being able to walk with crying .. She finally did MRI and it showed a stress fracture XRAY IS UNABLE TO SEE STRESS FRACTURES I can not stress this fact enough.
Get MRI on foot I bet you do have a stress fracture… which is horrific pain when your trying to walk or stand on it…. Worse 8 months ever for me!
Too true, the older we get the better I think it is to look after our joints etc, even if it means taking cod liver oil capsules & vitamin D4 for Calcium especially if you're not mobile enough to get out regularly and don't get as much sunlight as you'd usually do, I am well aware that I don't receive much due to the palava that it takes to go out, you'd think I had a baby in a pram and two toddlers both on playskool wrist straps and that I could accomplish quite well, at. Least I had full mobility and reason to make the effort, but now it's too painful so it's avoided in favour of something I can stream and I haven't streamed LOL.Ps not getting fat tho 5'9" and 8 stone 5lb, on yukky flavor high calorie drinks to help but I do eat a lot tho!. Must be the. way I get around hehehe
Hi Batty 1, thank you for your reply. I did have an MRI scan done eventually 2 years after the fall, it showed severe bruising and that is all it showed. I am due to have another one due to the fact my foot isn't getting any better which the consultant said it should have by now. I personally don't think anything will show up. I hope it does then they might be able to do something about it, but I am not holding my breath, I think the way that the consultant was talking to me he thinks it is all in my head and that there is nothing wrong with my foot, if there wasn't I wouldn't be walking with a limp. I just hope when I get my results from the MRI scan, I don't see him.
It might not have shown up especially if you had severe bone bruising (stress fractures look like and old porcelain cup with super fine cracks)…. My MRI showed stress fracture that was starting to heal but because I kept on applying pressure and it wouldn’t heal completely but who wouldn’t keep moving if your told that nothing is wrong with your foot … Maybe even if they find nothing on your foot maybe a boot on that foot would be helpful… who knows really please post what they find out Im very interested.
Aww thank you for your reply, nearly a year after the fall I saw a specialist chiropodist and she gave me an air boot to wear but the problem was it was given to me too late and didn't make any difference, she said it should have been given to me after the fall and that I shouldn't have been walking on it. It is a breath of fresh air when someone says to keep them updated and that they care thank you for that, I certainly will. xx
The point of the boot is to take pressure off the foot assuming you have a stress fracture which will allow your foot to heal no matter when you obtained the injury….. stress fractures are tiny little cracks in bones that won’t heal if you continue to use the foot the body weight has to be taken off the foot and the boot helps this.
In the ideal world you would have been given a boot at the time of injury but we don’t live in that world all the time unfortunately.
You are right there we don't live in the ideal world, when I started wearing the boot a year after the fall I had to have a lot of time off work and then when I stopped wearing the boot I went back to work but because my foot was so weak, I lasted 1 day at work and I had to leave because I couldn't do the job anymore because I couldn't walk, I am a room attendant where I am on my feel most of the day. I can't afford to not work, if I wore the boot again I would have to leave my job, due to health and safety. Thank you for your advice.xx
That stinks and anyway really have to wait and see what happens at your next appointment.
Thank you Batty1, I will bear everything you have said to me and ask the consultant if I could have a stress fracture, he will probably say no because they knew i was trying to claim compensation for the care that i never recieved and they are scared of telling me what is wrong because it would be there fault for waiting too long to treat me. xx
My gosh that’s horrible healthcare to deny you a solution because they don’t want to be liable… awful. Can you go to another hospital for care?
I have tried but because my hospital records say that I held them responsible for my lack of care, they don't want to know. About 6 months ago I saw a professor at supposedly the best hospital in the area where I live and once he read my records he was more interested in the claim than my actual problem, he has actually passed me on to someone else now because he wasn't even bothered. x
Image1 I've just got to say that does not sound good at all...
You see I was going to Tameside General where the current at the tim| "senior registrar of obstetrics" and one of the questions he asked me suprisingly if I suffered from back pain? I'd gone about my right nueropathic leg that's had 3 ops - one of those you can see your foot on the carpet.... But can't feel it and it wouldn't support my 8 stone 4oz guaranteed so I replied "it's the way that I'm walking". Well I thought it was yino? I'd been on crutches for an age.
But he arranged an MRI scan for my back and wrote a 2 page single lined letter to my GP & I received a copy. The registrar also prescribed pregablin as he'd had some success with his patients spinal pain.
The MRI said L4 L5 - S1 S2. Whatever it meant, I just know that he also referred me to the pain clin at Tameside and I was on one of those beds stretching and reaching up to a bar, I had a proper what you'd expect to happen at a pain clinic. The lady I saw prescribed some OxyNorm 5mg x 112 per month for breakthrough pain relief too. But ow, it was a proper fully furnished pain clinic has you'd expect it to be. Then I had a letter from a "pain clinic - not the same but based at Tameside General stating that I should have an epidural here there and we'll I'd already read the words in black and white, it said 1) it might make you feel better 2) it may not do anything 3) it could make you feel worse. Well for extra info I'd tried an epidural during the birth of my daughter, I was given an injection in my spine and my left foot promptly went numb! So I was not happy about it.... I mean FFS! About as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I was terrified I don't gamble but I really didn't like the odds that it would at best "may make you feel better". With my personal experience and having a bed booked by someone I had no trust in and I had to explain this to my GP who is great because he understood why I didn't want that. So he referred me to Salford Royal and their neurosurgeo!s to see if they could help, I had another MRI there and the scan of my spine and it look|d like bits of debris floating about and that my spinal cord and I could hear his voice like he was in another room saying I definitely had degenerative disc disease & spinal stenosis and that I'd spent 6 yrs hoping to jump out of bed one day and be able to go for a run. So my mobility is a little bit of a laugh, like needing 2 bedrooms because I've a 24hr carer.
Although two things I'm looking forward to. Sorry 3 really but it's finally an appointment at Manchester dental hospital, but the others are that I'd been referred for a user controlled wheelchair last year and yesterday I got a letter to say that there would be an engineer calling the day before the dentist, so Yey! Something not bad or painful.
Do you think there's a go at your surgery that would understand the following. "It has affected the quality of your life, and it is more like an existence and tell them just how you feel I mean yes it's hard, but you'll feel better if you get things off your chest, I mean I'd feel depressed, although every time my GP says I'm depressed I tell him "everyone's worried in this current climate, it has nothing to do with depression", but I do think he's right. I just don't want to be put on some happy pills! I came out of hospitality on OxyContin to control the pain a!d it works excellently but it's inoperable and if you've heard of oxycodone hydrochloride I'd ask if you have the Disney channel? There's a series on there called "Dopesick" about Purdue pharmaceuticals and it covers OxyContin which I believed wasn't as strong has dihydrocodeine or similar so finding out that it is actually 150% , like one and a half times stronger than medical morphine "🔜🔜🔜🔜" understatement so when I found out and discovered dopesick was one thing I should watch so I've started... Shocking tho!.
Funny I ended up under Salford eh?
I have an abutment at l4 L5 and it's given me ankle pain and a swelling on the knee cos my knee twists a bit now. And cold hot feet due to holding worst one up with other it's been same on MRI since 1991 and never given problems till now. Fit as a fiddle with 3 mile walks twice a week now foot so sore can't walk far. The knee was microfractured buy operation 6 years ago. And I've had a CT scan on pelvis and bladder etc. My question I was told the microfractured knee would last 15 years I've looked at spec says 2 to 5 depends on age. I don't know weather it's the knee been going or the spine as back was fine at MRI 3 months ago now walking or trying to walk has made it worse. I have appointment on wed next .any ideas as where to go with this regards not even had xray on knee or ankle regards john
Hi Karmashadow, the problem with me is I am allergic to 99% of painkillers. I have a severe allergy to opiates and opiods which are painkillers, so the pain that I am in doesn't get any relief. All I can take is paracetamol and they are absolutely rubbish. I have been to Tameside hospital waste of time, I won't ever go to Oldham Royal because this is where I went when I had the fall and they did nothing about it. I thought that the patient could choose which hospital that they wanted but obviously not, probably the other hospitals are going on strike and turning patients away.
I am more or less in same boat. Something whent in my back to foot . Sent home now knee swells up ankle on inside giving way. And the foot feels like I got rumatoid in it after 3 months. What was your ankle broken?
Curable pain App may help you mentally deal with chronic pain.
Have you been to a podiatrist? If it’s a stress fracture, good orthopaedic shoes will help.
I had a stress fracture that took 8 months to heal and the right shoes plus Epsom salt baths every day helped.
Hi Konagirl60, The consultant said that I never had a fracture even though I was told from my physiotherapist who I saw last week, that i had and in her opinion the reason I now limp is because when it healed, it went into an odd position. I just don't know who to believe, so many doctors I have seen are all saying different things. The original xray that I had said that it was a fracture to the heel bone, the problem with that is I didn't fall on that it was my foot nowhere near my heel bone. They probably got my xray mixed up with someone else's.
I don’t understand why these specialists can’t talk to one another and get a proper diagnosis. It’s mind boggling.
Don’t give up.
Thank you Konagirl60, I will NEVER give up, even though there are some replies on here that say differently, basically just live with it
Have you tried taking Curcumin pills? They’re essentially turmeric and it helps with arthritis pain. Just a thought.
My husband has took them in the past for his arthritis which is in his fingers, it didn' t work for him and I tried as well, thank you anyway. xx
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