NHS? I give up

I have an ongoing issue with a smashed in foot. I've seen numerous doctors and consultants and other kinds of medics, had numerous xrays and an MRI. I have custom made insoles that do nothing but I use them anyway on the basis that somebody that I trust knows their stuff said they'll help.

At no point has anyone suggested cheapo anti inflammatory tablets or rest or anything.

Today I got a letter from the hospital, asking me to go in to a hospital that is a fair old trek away, for minor surgery. It gives no indication of expected length of time I'll be in there, and it says if my procedure means I can't drive, I'll need to get someone to bring me home. That's fair enough, but it gives me no information about the procedure or whether or not I'll be OK to drive. So that means I'll have to tell my boss is need some time off, but can't give her a clue as to how much time. And I'll have to organise someone to collect me, telling them I have no idea what time or even if I need them. On top of all this, the letter says that due to a bed crisis, they might cancel anyway without notice.

All of this is for a procedure that might make matters worse, but at best might ease the pain for a few weeks.

So tomorrow I'm going to phone them and tell them I'm not coming. No wonder the NHS is bust. The whole fiasco is just one disorganised mess of lack of communication, both between nhs and patient, and between nhs departments.

I'm just going to figure it out myself.

 

Was this minor surgery never suggested by anyone you have seen in the past?

 

Yes the last consultant I saw who seemed to forget it was still there when he started talking into a dictaphone. Then he seemed to remember, and said the podiatrist would discuss it with me. The podiatrist hasn't contacted me. I just got the letter today booking me in for surgery. I'm not going.

 

Yep, I've had that from my GP, they suddenly start talking and you think? Are they talking to me?
Then you realise they are making notes or composing a letter.
You dont know wether to just get up and walk out, stay put until told to leave or just slowly wander off.

 

Forgive the pun but, isn't that sort of shooting yourself in the foot?

But, by doing that, you could make matters worse and then where will you go? Back to the NHS, in a potentially worse condition, possibly creating extra costs to sort it out.

 

Letting the NHS have a go could make matters worse. This is by their own admission. They also admit that IF it makes things better, it will only be for a short time.

Life is one long balancing act of risk vs reward. For some private company handling nhs contracts, the risk is the negligible risk of getting done for getting it wrong, compared to the very significant reward of getting paid. For me, the risk is loss of pay or holidays plus loss of the use of my foot, for the very small potential reward of reduced pain for a few weeks.

It's not worth it.

In terms of sorting it myself, I will take a multi pronged approach. Dropping some pounds will reduce the force going through the injured joint. Swapping walking for leisure with cycling for leisure will give the injury site chance to mend the permanent bruise inside the mashed bone. Then footwear experimentation may do something, and anti inflammatory gels might help. Added all together in reckon it's going to be better than letting someone do unexplained procedures on me so they can claim hundreds of pounds from the NHS.

 

I can't fault the gp. Or for that matter anyone that's been involved. It's the system is have a problem with. Each individual professional does their job well, then passes me on to who they think I need to see next. It's just that each one treats everything as a new case, rather than looking at the bigger picture. It's not their fault. All they get to go off is a few notes in the referral.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...-study&usg=AFQjCNH8FSu15nvmLc1b23hCrhdvra3HTg

 

As I continue to endeavour to reduce my foot pain without further assistance from the NHS, and thought occurred to me.

It is undeniable that my big toe joint is a mess. I've seen the xray. It's also undeniable that there's a persistent bruise inside the bone. That showed up in the MRI.

So the NHS approach is, as always, you attempt to treat the symptoms without looking at the bigger picture.

I've long suspected that there is also tendon injury in the area. I've mentioned this to several people in the course of my NHS consultations. Nobody seemed interested, focusing instead on the bone injury.

So I poked about. I found a tendon that is very sore when I press it, and is very lumpy. Classic tendonitis. And it leads right to my big toe joint.

So I Googled it. It's the flexor hallucis brevis. It's job is to pull the big toe downwards, and to absorb the force of the forefoot striking the floor as you walk. When it becomes injured guess what it does? It stops distributing force through the toe and along the length of the foot, so now all the force goes to one specific point. Guess where that point is? Yep. The already injured big toe joint.

It gets worse. Tendonitis doesn't heal itself in the typical modern lifestyle (that's true of tendons in any part of the body as far as I know). The body does have a cracking at it, laying down replacement fibres in the former of scar tissue, but it is weak and doesn't move right. The body responds by taking the injured tendon out of service, getting other muscles to take on the extra work. The injured tendon stays injured, the muscles it's part of grow weak, and the whole site becomes increasingly prone to further injury.

The only way to heal and injured tendon and reduce the risk of further injury to the site is to exercise the muscle it's connected to, both to increase strength and flexibility. Yet in a consultation about the bone injury, I was specifically told (accurately) that no amount of exercise will help the bone injury. No but it will help the surrounding muscle injury, which in turn will help keep forces off the bone injury.

So now as part of my quest to reduce my own foot pain, I'm incorporating specific toe control exercises. None of which need place load on the joint, but will hopefully over time get my foot working closer to normal.