A sequence of rather unfortunate events and surgeries have left me once again recuperating in West Sussex with a rather nasty broken leg, accomapnied by a Taylor Spatial Frame (TSF). This is my second time with one of these contraptions and I successfully buried my head in the sand on the previous occasion, therefore I thought I would document my experiences this time. It may not be of interest to many people but it may help anyone who is facing this procedure, which is a terrifying prospect. It may also be interesting for those who are supporting someone going through this, as I could not and would not want to go through this on my own. My family and friends play an instrumental part in my recovery.
I have undertaken some research on the web and there seems to be very little informaiton in terms of personal experiences of using a TSF. I plan on using this blog more as a diary, sharing my experiences as they happen. I hope you find this informative and interesting.
About Me
- Emily W
- A lover of all things British, from Marmite to Kate Middleton I have recently left our green and pleasant land for the mountainous climes of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am enjoying freezing winters, baking hot summers, cevapi and the constant challenge of having to substitute ingredients in recipes as I can't get them here!
Hello mate ...
ReplyDeletei read your blog and man... i can realy understand what u are going mentaly and physically ...i suffered from genu-varus from childhood and i was terrified from doing somthing about it ...well ...in the worst timming possible it caught me ..my wife was pregnant and i developed a bad pain in the knee until 8 months later my right knee collapsed=couldnt bear weight !
i had 2 frames on my legs 2 months ago and i underwent 2 corrective surgaries...well..i have an ilizirov frames which are a bit diffrent but same concept ...wish u all the best and may the end results be perfect...u can e-mail me if u want to eyalzk@yahoo.com...
Enjoyed reading your blog and look forward to more entries. I am in my 3rd week post-op TSF placement for tibia-lengthening, approx 2.5cm. I was in a car accident a couple of years ago when I shattered my ankle, had 2 unsuccesful ankle surgeries, and finally had to do (last resort) an ankle fusion (during which they had to shave off the necrotic bone), leaving my right leg almost and inch shorter than my left leg. I am very active into fitness and still relatively young (34yo) and was already having knee pain and spine curvature as a result of the 1" leg length discrepancy. As I said earlier, I have had the TSF on for 3 weeks, and just started adjusting it last week. My main complaint is pain, the intensity and duration of pain coming from the frame sites as well as muscle/nerve pain that radiates down to my ankle and foot. I am taking dilaudid around the clock, but when I try to reduce my dose or wait longer between doses, I sometimes I have a "pain crisis" and end up spending hours trying to catch up. I will check back at this site on a regular basis to see if anyone has comments, suggestions, or can relate to the pain I am talking about.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your note. It is good to know that my experiences may help other people - the main reason I have decided to blog!! More posts will be uploaded over the next few days.
ReplyDeleteYour complaint of pain is sounds ever so familiar, especially when turning the pins. I stopped turning the pins on my TSF about two weeks ago and everything has got much better since. This time around the pain has been managed much more effectively. I have been on tramadol and paracetamol with oxycodene as a break through painkiller if required. Unfortunately I reacted horribly to this so have coped with the tramadol and paracetamol alone.
For me, tramadol has worked really well. The pain control throughout my first TSF was terrible and managed very poorly. I seem to react very badly to many opiate based drugs, so oramorph and co-codamol are not good.
I have started to wean myself off the painkillers now. I am now down to two doses of tramadol per day, with paracetamol in between if required (which is rare).
It might seem like a long way off, but as soon as you do stop turning the pins, the pain will reduce as everything will settle down and the pin sites will be able to heal.
The only advice I can give is to keep the pain under control. As you have experienced, the moment your pain gets out of control the harder it is to rein it back in again. Take your painkillers throughout the adjustments and then think about coming off them - I would not even consider it before!!
Let me know if you have any more queries, I would be more than happy to help.
Best of luck!