November signals the imminent arrival of cold winter months. If winter brings the snow needed for your favorite outdoor activities, such as skiing, you’re probably excited to get back at it.
However, if you’re already dealing with chronic foot pain from Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, or arthritis, those activities might become incredibly difficult due to increased pain and stiffness that cold weather often triggers.
If your chronic foot pain hasn’t responded to conservative methods, you may want to consider surgery before the worst of winter is here. Even if you aren’t that physically active, your pain will likely ramp up as temperatures drop, making even everyday tasks a chore.
Surgery isn’t always an appealing treatment option, but podiatry experts Matthew Hinderland, DPM, Jordan Cameron, DPM, Trevor Whiting, DPM, and Shane Soto, DPM, at Foot and Ankle Institute of Colorado in Colorado Springs, Colorado, offer minimally invasive foot surgery and other techniques to quickly and effectively address the issue and get you back on your feet.
In this month’s blog, we discuss the effects of cold weather on chronic pain and how surgery can help relieve it.
Your vasomotor nerves are part of your sympathetic nervous system. Their job is to tell your muscles to tighten or widen the space inside your blood vessels to adjust blood flow and circulation.
When you’re cold, your vasomotor nerves cue your muscles to tighten the space to keep blood from going to your skin. This process is called peripheral vasoconstriction, and it’s how your body preserves heat.
However, this reduced blood flow can cause muscle and joint tightness and stiffness. While this isn’t normally a glaring issue, it can exacerbate symptoms of existing issues, including the joint pain of arthritis, the muscle pain of plantar fasciitis, and the tendon pain of Achilles tendonitis.
In addition, during the winter months, you may be more likely to wear heavy boots and thick socks that don’t offer proper arch support, further worsening your foot pain.
If you’ve already undergone conservative treatments to address your chronic foot pain from plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendonitis with no symptom improvement, minimally invasive surgery might be a viable next step.
With minimally invasive surgery, our team makes only a few very small incisions, ones that are 75% smaller than traditional open surgery. These incisions provide access for our surgical tools that are guided with imaging technology. The tools allow us to perform all the necessary repairs, and the small incisions ensure recovery time is significantly reduced.
When your arthritis has severely degenerated your joints, you may reach a point where fusion surgery becomes necessary to relieve pain and restore mobility.
During fusion surgery, our team makes a few incisions to gain access to the damaged joints. Your provider then cleans out all the damaged joint lining and other debris before fusing the damaged joints together with pins and screws.
Because the joints in your feet are small, full recovery from fusion surgery is fairly quick, around three months. However, you can typically get back on your feet as you feel able within the first few weeks.
Don’t let the cold weather leave you dealing with severe pain all winter long. Schedule an appointment with our expert and compassionate team to learn more about treatment options, including the surgical variety.
Simply call our office, or use our online booking feature to schedule your consultation today.
