HAGLUND"S DEFORMITY

Post a contact email. I can recommend some great surgeons. Correct diagnosis(Calcium deposits in the tendon vs none) is primary and a foot/ankle specialist is where to start.

I highly recommend Brian Fullem if you live in the Connecticut area. I had Haglund's surgery and have been very happy with the results. Prior to the surgery I was in a lot of pain and couldn't even walk normally. Now post surgery I can walk pain free and have been gradually getting back to running. The recovery process is long though. I was in a cast for a few weeks and then moved into a boot. I wasn't able to walk for about 1 month. After about 3 months I was given the go ahead to start running again. Dr. Fullem has been known to post here occassionally so you could do a search on the message board to find his e-mail. I'm sure he can recommend someone for you if you don't live in the CT area.

You can also go to

http://www.acfas.org/

to find a board certified foot and ankle surgeon in your area. You can use

http://www.aapsm.org/

as a cross reference to see if the surgeon specializes in sports medicine.

Good Luck.

What is Swedish sprinters from the 70's, Alex?

I've been having trouble the last year as well and am starting to consider surgery.

What are the risks of getting the bone shaved? I've been reluctant b/c I see surgery as the last option.

Surgery SHOULD be your last option. I exhausted all other options (i.e. physical therapy, orthotic devices, heel lifts, etc.)

The only real risk is some of the bone that was shaved off can come back. Although from my understanding this is rare. The dr. also had to detach my achilles so there is some inherent risk in that as well. If you get the surgery make sure the surgeon has performed the procedure multiple times in the past.

Some of the risks ...They may have to detach all or part of your AT, with this in mind there is always the possiblity that you may ruputure your AT during rehab.Relative to the rest of your body, there is low blood flow in the area, thus making for a longer recovery time and increasing the chance of infection.They have to mess around in the vicinity of your sural nerve and could possibly do permanent damage. (My heels were numb for months afterward)************My observations:I had the surgery, and felt immediate relief, even while there were stitches in both feet.Whenever they do bone work (sawing, filing, etc.) It hurts like a ... let's just say it REALLY huts. ;-) Also the wound weeps quite a bit and looks kinda gross for a week or so - I took one look at my heels on the first trip in to have the bandages changed ... it looked so bad that I thought they were infected. Docs are reluctant to do surgery for pain, since perception varies so much between indididuals, and you may meet some initial resistance. I had to beg to have the surgery done.I had the surgery on both heels at the same time ... if you need it on both, do them both at the same time, because I can almost guarantee that you will not want to have it done again on the 2nd heel 6 months later.

Suffering As well wrote:

I've been having trouble the last year as well and am starting to consider surgery.

What are the risks of getting the bone shaved? I've been reluctant b/c I see surgery as the last option.

I had the surgery and wear the Free's to help strengthen the feet and since the Free has no heel counter it helps with discomfort when walking.

I had haglund bumps on my heels years ago. I went to my chiropractor, he mobilized my foot joints, and the pain (not the bump) was completely gone in a couple days. You didn't mention chiropractic in your post, and a PT might not catch on to tight foot joints. Give it a shot before you get surgery. Good luck.

Thanks a lot so far everyone.

She hasn't tried a chiropractor I'll mention that. Also, did everyone who had the surgery have this achilles pain that is similar to tendonitis?

As far as doctors go she lives in the Wisconsin/Minnesota area.

My contact email is

RUN340@hotmail.com

Thanks again.

Yes. The pain tricked some Doc's into thinking it was achilles tendonits. When my doc did the surgery the achilles was fine it was the Haglund's that was pulling on the achilles. Uphills hurt as well as the first few minutes of a run (especially AM).

I was diagnosed with Haglund's a couple years ago, but haven't gone for the surgery. Most of my pain is down near the attachment point of my achilles, on the inside of the heel. I feel fine most of the time, but have mild pain from about 3 minutes in to about 10 minutes on shorter easy runs (gets better if I stop and stretch). I have real problems when I try to run longer than about 45 minutes, or do any running that puts me farther up on my toes, whether it's tempo running, playing soccer, goofing around in the park, etc.

I wore orthotics for a year, and they helped some, but I still wasn't able to run more than 4 days/week. I stopped wearing them after I had to take time away from running because the achilles started hurting worse than usual. I've been running without the orthotics for about a year, and have been feeling ok except when I try to do anything longer or faster. Massage on my calf muscles has helped some, but it's too expensive for me to do regularly.

Any thoughts or advice?

ancillary advice,

when you talk about uphills hurting as well as the first few minutes of a run do you mean pre-surgery or post-surgery?

if she was diagnosed with haglund's and she wants to continue running, then get the surgery. i had it done on both feet. the first time i ended up with a small tear in my achilles so not only did i have the bone shaved, i had my achilles fixed too because the tear was big enough that it would not heal on it's own. the recovery time was no running for three months and i started at about 30 seconds the first day and almost died. you don't want to end up tearing it because achilles surgery is painful as hell.

two years later i was getting a lot of pain in my other achilles, classic tendonitis symptoms. i went to see the doctor and an MRI showed hanglunds, no tear, signs of tendonitis and a stress reaction in my heel. orthotics are an option and so is running less, but if you want to continue to train, you need to get that bone shaved down. after the first surgery this one was cake, but it's a tough area to heal. it was a few months before i started running again but i was able to get back to training much quicker than the first surgery but it takes time.

you need to decide how important running is down the road. i'm past my prime but i still want to be able to go out and run an hour each night and without this surgery, i would never be able to do it.

I dont know if i have haglund's deformity but i have huge bumps on the backs of my heels which seems to be what that is after googling. A big thing that has helped me is cutting the hard plastic out of the backs of all my shoes. That way the is no external force on the heel at least- its only the internal stretching of the tendon. This has helped me significantly!

In my case I had already "thrown in the towel" and was simply hoping that I could go for a hike with my wife without pain. I found that I was able to run again, and that was icing on the cake.

been shaved twice wrote:

you need to decide how important running is down the road. i'm past my prime but i still want to be able to go out and run an hour each night and without this surgery, i would never be able to do it.

Sorry. I meant prior to surgery, hills really aggrivated the heel. If I was sprinting up the hill I didn't notice it as much. Not sure why. Also prior to surgery, the first half mile of my runs would just kill. After that, the heel would warm up and almost feel normal. Post surgery: I haven't run much but I can tell it's healing up well. The Free helps a lot.

Stock up on clogs or sandals without any sort of heel. You won't want anything touching your heel post surgery for a while.

I think mine was called a haglund bump, not a haglund deformity. I don't know if there's a difference. I never had any pain in my achilles, but had plenty at the bump which was entirely from the pressure of the shoe on it.

I’m 35 years old and had surgery for a pretty severe case of Haglund’s Deformity on my left foot one week ago because it seemed that without such surgery there’s no hope of my resuming the 11-12 miles per day I like to run. So far, I haven’t needed the use of crutches. My foot is wrapped up and I walk in a “moon boot.” Although I have a perhaps unhelpfully high pain tolerance, I’m rather surprised by the fact that I’ve not needed to take any painkillers since the surgery. In fact, I was gingerly walking later on in the same day on which I had the surgery. I see the doctor tomorrow.

For some background on my case, if you’re interested, see my post at the bottom of the following thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=776737&thread=775935