Surgery for claw & hammer toes?

[Lorix2]

My DD has both of these types of toes. It's become so bad that her last 3 toes are curling inward like claws causing her to step on her toes and her 2nd toe is a hammer toe, on both feet.

We see orthopedics again tomorrow and will be discussing possible surgery, if we should wait til she's older, etc...but she's 13 and it's getting worse and every day tells me how painful it is.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Did surgery help you?

Thanks

 

[becka]

My brother had the same problem with his toes. He ended up going to the doctor around 13/14 because it was getting worse and they thought he would need surgery to correct the problem. Before they did the surgery they wanted to rule out any nuerological problems. They sent him to a neurologist and unfortunately they discovered the cause was a neurological disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) syndrome (I thnk I spelled that right). They did not end up doing the surgery because while it would not have really helped.

I just wanted you to be aware that your doctor (or you) may want to investigate possible other issues before going for the surgery to make sure it will fix the problem.

 

[Lorix2]

Becka, I read about possible testing online, thanks for responding.

Is you're brother ok? Is it serious?

 

[becka]

My brother has a fairly mild form of the disease. He has lots of problems with his feet and some problems with coordination that are related. The doctors think he will start to need braces on his legs sometime in the next 5-10 years or so. He is only 20 right now but they figure by his mid-20s the nerve degeneration will have more of an impact but they don't think his case is bad enough that he will ever need to be in a wheelchair but if the disease progresses more than they think that could still happen.

I really don't want to scare you but I would hate to see someone go through that surgery if it would not really help that much. I don't think is a very pleasant surgery.