RISKS & COMPLICATIONS
OF SURGERY

No surgery is ever risk-free, and there are several potential complications associated with surgery. These potential complications include (and this is not an exhaustive list):

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• Infection

• Loss of toe (rare)

• Tendon injury

• Nerve injury

• Blood vessel injury

• Excessive bleeding 

• Joint stiffness

• Wound healing problems

• Bone healing problems

• Delayed/non-union

• Implant failure/extrusion

• Hypersensitive scars

• Chronic pain syndrome (worse pain than before surgery)

• Failure to correct the deformity

• Recurrence of deformity

• Failure to remove implant (where applicable)

• Residual pain

• Residual deformity

• Partial improvement

• No improvement

• Worse symptoms

• Intraoperative/postoperative fracture

• Blood clot in the leg (DVT)

• Fatal clot in lung (PE)

• Anaesthetic risks

 

Your feet do not remain the same during your life. Foot changes are part of life and movement cannot be stopped. 2-5 years after surgery your feet may look different again. Surgery cannot unfortunately delay the ageing process. Any foot revision surgeries tend to have a lower success rate due to the previous disruption to the blood supply and nerves.

 

Some patients with medical conditions such as diabetes or rheumatoid conditions, smokers and overweight patients, often have higher risk of complications (e.g. delayed healing, non-unions of bone). 

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