Treating Foot and Ankle Arthritis

Lee Health Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Diana Young said she sees many patients who have arthritis in their foot or ankle. “Sometimes if it’s a milder case of arthritis, people are still able to do their day-to-day activities, but once they start doing more challenging activities like sporting activities, it starts to bother them, they start to get pain, sometimes they get swelling.”

It stems from the joint deteriorating. “Some people get it and some people don’t. We don’t always know who does and who doesn’t, but in some cases it’s a little bit more predictable. If someone’s had an injury before like a broken ankle, that can mean later on in the future they could get arthritis of that ankle,” said Dr. Young.

If a patient hasn’t experienced arthritis before, she’ll start by trying a nonsurgical approach. “Sometimes an injection can help. Sometimes a different kind of shoe wear or orthotic can help them,” said Dr. Young. For smaller joints with arthritis, the surgical treatment is usually fusion. “What fusion is doing is joining the two bones that are on either side of the joint together, letting those bones grow together, and fixing them in place with some sort of hardware until the bone is strong enough and then rehabilitating after that to get back into the day-to-day activity,” said Dr. Young.

Ankle replacement is another surgical option. Dr. Young said the treatment is very individualized depending on the patient and their goals. Getting patients back on their feet, so they can once again do what they love.




View More Health Matters video segments at LeeHealth.org/Healthmatters/


Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Lee Health - Caring People. Inspiring Care.


Visit LeeHealth.org