Crystal Nelson
Our ankles have to endure a lot. The cartilage suffers as a result. The result: arthrosis in the ankle. Read here how mirroring the joint can then repair the damage.
Katja S. had carefully taken care of her health over the years. She ate consciously and did a lot of sports. It happened one day while jogging: she twisted her ankle. The foot immediately swelled up. The 52-year-old then took it easy on her injured leg, but the same mishap happened to her again and again in the years that followed. And always there was the severe, stabbing pain and weeks of recovery.
Osteoarthritis in the ankle: Wear and tear of the cartilage
The doctor’s diagnosis was clear. The ligaments in the ankle had been overstretched. And due to this weakening, Katja S. twisted her ankle again and again. Unfortunately, she hadn’t taken the injury seriously enough, and over time the ankle cartilage had suffered considerable damage. “As a result of injuries caused by repeated twisting, progressive cartilage wear develops,” notes Dr. Ernst Helmut Schwer from Hamburg sure. “The consequences of this are swelling, effusion, and increasing stress pain through to night-time rest pain.” But Katja S. could be helped with her arthrosis in the ankle – thanks to a method that has long been standard for large joints and has now been further developed for arthrosis in the ankle.
Upper ankle tighter
“Arthroscopy or joint reflection is widespread and has so far mainly been used for knee and shoulder joints,” says Dr. Difficult. However, the ankle joint is much narrower than the other joints. Therefore, the instruments for the so-called keyhole surgery had to be significantly smaller. The optics have a diameter of fewer than three millimeters.
Only small cuts are necessary
The doctor can insert the instruments into the joint through just a few small incisions. For example, adhesions in the synovial membrane or protruding bone edges can be removed. “In the case of superficial cartilage damage, smoothing is usually carried out with an arthroscopic instrument,” explains the expert. It becomes more complicated when the cartilage damage is deeper. In this case, detached cartilage parts must first be removed in order to be able to create so-called microfractures. Tiny holes are drilled into the exposed bone. “Blood rich in stem cells emerges from the bone marrow through these openings and forms a kind of biological seal in the cartilage defect,” explains Dr. Difficult. Replacement cartilage develops over weeks.
A few weeks rest after joint reflection
Katja S. also got her joint reflection. In the same session, the outer ligaments were also stabilized in an open operation. After that, she had to rest her foot for a few weeks. Then she could slowly begin to burden him. A physiotherapist helped her. Today, thanks to the operation, she is no longer in pain. By the way: the costs of arthroscopy are usually covered by health insurance.
