Modified Brostrom Recovery Blog – Why Surgery?

I’m writing this after coming off a long period of debate whether to have the Brostrom procedure to repair ligaments torn and weakened from years of sprains and athletic injuries.  I scoured the net looking for information and found many valuable blogs – thank you to those writers.  This is my contribution.  Please contact me if you’re thinking about surgery and have questions.

Quick bio: I’m an aging weekend warrier athlete.   My primary sports are snowboarding and tennis with some hiking and circuit training mixed in. I’m 53 years old and in good health – no meds, all routine medical tests within spec.

When I was younger, I sprained my ankle countless times. I played a lot of tennis and did a lot of skateboarding and I would roll my ankle on a regular basis.   It would hurt and heal quickly – sometimes it would swell up, one time I had a massive bruise. It always got better – until I turned 50.

For the last few years it has been steadily weakening. I gave up running. Long hikes became painful.  Walking barefoot began to hurt.  I bought custom inserts for my shoes.  I tried physical therapy and prolotherapy and started doing regular ankle strengthening exercises.   Nothing worked and it continued to slowly get worse.  At the rate I was going, I probably had 1-2 years of tennis and 3-5 years of snowboarding left.

I went in for an MRI and the anterior talofibular and the calcaneofibular ligaments were, and I’m quoting here, “shredded”.  I did a lot of research on the procedure and then opted for surgery. I really resisted the idea of surgery – not a fan.   I’m firm in the belief that diet, exercise and non-invasive physical therapies can fix a lot.   But not this.  Surgery to me is a last resort, to be used only when all else has failed.

So I went under the knife.  Was it a good decision?  Too early to tell but early signs seem very promising.