Foot Surgery Went Terribly Wrong (Cindy's Story) 

Have you had or seen a similar experience? Share it down below! 👉Get a FREE program to rebuild your mind and body! Get Body Rebuilding Basics Now! uprighthealth.com/brb

Thanks for sharing this testimony. Here is my story. I had a hip problem as a baby that was never properly dealt with, it left me with a terrible gait and real clumsiness. By my 20s my back pain was severe and I was given shoe insoles to straighten me up. They worked. They were hard acrylic and lasted 30 years! I thought everything was OK, but they were masking an underlying problem. Lockdown happend and I was going barefoot round the house. Massive amount of muscle loss due to not getting much exercise and my right foot collapsed. Because it was pandemic time no doctor actually wanted to look at my foot and I was left in agony with a vague diagnosis of arthritis. Eventually I got an MRI and it revealed the main tendon holding the foot up had collapsed. I would need radical surgery which would involve a tendon transplant and many screws in my foot. This happened, it was necessary. The doctor said I would also need surgery on my other foot.This I was less happy about. Luckily a mixture of these videos (very inspiring) and work with a physical therapist who was somewhat cynical of orthopedic surgeons, started me on the right track. The physical therapist straight away identified the problems were coming from my hip. Exercise was painful but I have slowly come to understand my body and I feel like I am learning to walk for the first time. My gait, posture, breathing and stamina are all improving. I have muscle tone that I never had even as a teenager. The operations (2 in 2 years) have left me with a lot of pain but by strengthening the muscles, I can read it better and I am getting more and more active. The best news is that by exercise, my left foot does not need surgery. The look on my orthopedic surgeon's face when he saw the progress with my gait and foot position was priceless. He simply could no longer justify surgery. I am so pleased I did not leave myself entirely at the mercy of the doctors. They have their uses, but they don't see the whole picture.

I've been fairly sedentary over the last 5 years due to taking metropolol prescribed by a heart doctor to slow my heart rate down because I have irregular heart beat. So being my hr was down around 40 most of the time I didn't feel like doing anything. Back in November I knew I had to do something so just marched in place. I hurt something inside my knee. I couldn't walk even with using a walker. Over the next few months it got a tad better enough for me to use a cane. I went to my regular doctor and said I need to do something because I just sit all day so he said to go off the metropolol. What my heart was doing wasn't dangerous just annoying. I, in the mean time, came across your knee videos and bought the program. I've been doing the exercises plus more I found on your site. I have lots more energy now so have been doing lots more exercises. When I started there was no way I could lie on my back and lift my bottom up to do a plank. Now I can do it and hold for a count of 30. My knee is getting better but I do think I have a torn meniscus because once in a while it will lock up and hurt really bad. I can wiggle it around to get it unlocked most of the time now. I don't want surgery after listening to all the horror stories on your channel! I can sit indian style now and my knee gets better every week! I'm getting muscles back in my butt and my legs! I can see them now! Still can't do a squat but I'm working on it. Not bad for an old lady of 75!

Listened to whole thing. I would like more such stories.

I love this story. Congratulations Cindy and thank you Matt.

Hello, this story resonated with me, I've been able to fix a lifelong chronic foot pain issue over the last 2 months without surgery. I went from not being able to stand or walk for 20 mins to walking 4+ miles without issues multiple times per week. Forgive the wall of text sure to follow - I'm in my late 20s now. My pain was mostly due to collapsed arches/flat-footedness, and the general atrophying and degradation of my foot strength over the last decade combined with a recurring injuries to my right foot. I don't remember a time when my feet, particularly my right foot, was not in some kind of pain, I remember dreading weekend shopping as walking around the supermarket was awful for me, and this was ~20 years ago. *My issue:* 1. General flat-footedness / collapsed arches. Essentially my feet over-pronate inwards while they're flat on the floor and while walking, this stresses the insides of my feet, and inflammation and tissue damage builds up. That's basically it. Given how when we walk/jog, we produce forces 2-5x our bodyweight through our feet, if your feet aren't healthy you're in for a bad time. I've *never* been athletic. Playing football/soccer was always painful for me. Any form of jogging or running was always painful for me. This essentially was the Achilles heel for me pursuing a role in the military, as I couldn't stand the pain while training for 1.5 mile runs. I've been told that I "run funny" - which I am only starting to understand and "fix" 20 years later. 2. During my teens I didn't put much weight on my feet and was a loner. I would walk around the house barefooted and go on tiptoes a lot as this was (foreshadowing) the least painful way for me to walk. I did go to the gym, this worsened the issue but hey, if I can't be athletic at least I can look athletic. 3. Once I got into the workforce and was working 5 days per week, I was constantly taking painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and most weekends would be spent recovering for the next week. I would use my PTO/holidays to spend more time recovering. And as you might expect, I didn't go out much on the weekends or evenings, because it would only cause more pain in the following days. ANYTHING I might decide to do (go out and be sociable, join clubs, attend events, go travelling, dating etc.), I would always think "I could do x, BUT I'll barely be able to walk for 2-3 days afterwards, and then I'll be in the middle of a work week, and I'll be miserable... so I might as well not go...) - that's my teens and 20s summed up in one thought. "Pushing through it" is fine, once, and then you have 2-3 days recovering if it goes well, 2-3 weeks if it's particularly effortful (e.g. a hike). I tried doing BJJ but couldn't tolerate doing it in conjunction with working full time due to the sheer pain I had from it. I "tried" dating, but was in so much pain while getting down to business that I basically never enjoyed any of it and couldn't "perform." I really enjoy going out dancing but it is so unbelievably painful that I've only been able to do it idk 4-5 times in my life. This helped build up a reputation in me as a "quitter" and "hermit" which I hated, but couldn't help agreeing with, so there was this shame and constant humiliation attached to my recovery as well, and not understanding why other people didn't have the problems I did, and being resentful and hating how lucky they were. I'd gaslight myself that maybe everyone has these pains but just isn't a weak as me, those sorts of things. Awful yoyoing between self-love and understanding, self-pitying and embarrassment and self-admonishment and misery. 4. I had recurring injuries to my right foot. E.g. stepping off the sidewalk just having a POP of pain in my right foot. Apparently this was a stress fracture and essentially nothing could be done except to wait for it to heal. This would happen usually once per year quite badly, and would essentially mean 2-3 months of additional pain. Also all the painkillers, NSAIDS I took caused hell with my stomach, so I had IBS symptoms throughout my late teens/20s. 5. Saw podiatrists, they said they could do surgery to shave bone on my "accessory navicular), but the risks would be potential for vascular damage/clots forming, or nerve damage and potential loss of control of parts of my feet/toes if it didn't go perfectly. I took this information in and decided to not risk it. I would constantly think "would I regret not having the surgery more than having the surgery and it going wrong?" and for years this was a concern in the back of my mind. I had other treatments, gels, steroid injections into my foot. Things like that. So instead my "treatment" was to wear orthotics/shoe inserts which were either soft gels or hard plastics, they would redistribute the weight that went through my foot. They helped a LOT, especially the more recent ones. So I would wear these ALL the time, whenever I went outside I would wear them. For context, without the orthotics I could only really tolerate walking for 20 minutes or so before my foot would start cramping up, I would gradually lose control of it and it would collapse and become liable to injury, with the orthotics I could just about tolerate 60-90 minutes, this was a huge improvement for me and helped me massively with reducing pain during the workweek. It went from unbearable to unpleasant, which I was insanely grateful for. *The Fix:* 1. Had another accident, was playing in the park with my family, jumped up to catch a ball, landed awkwardly, POP. My foot just folded and had intense pain, had to call a friend to give me a drive back on what would have been a five minute walk, I could not bear weight at all. By chance while recovering I saw a BJJ or Judo video, saw one of the athletes wearing tape on their foot, had an idea that I could buy this tape, use it year round to help stabilise and reinforce the arches of my foot so it could bear my weight better. This was a huge lightbulb moment for me, and I kicked myself (not literally) for not thinking of it sooner. So I got the tape, taped my foot up, and immediately felt relief. 2. As I was looking up videos on using sports tape I found the YT channel GROWN AND HEALTHY, saw his videos on "How to walk properly" and was intrigued. Then I learned about heel strike, midfoot strike, the Windlass Mechanism. I learned about wider toe boxes, and how cramped toes cause instability and foot pronation (cramped toes and heel-strike was almost certainly the source of ALL of my foot problems). I learned that heels and padding in shoes affect human gait mechanics, we slam our heels into the floor first, this offsets our skeleton and causes all sorts of issues with the bones and soft tissues in our ankles, knees, hips, back... I took his advice to heart and began changing the walk I walked. Previously I would just let my heel drop then roll my foot across the ground. 3. It felt SUPER unnatural to change the way I walked at the start. I was SURE I was doing it wrong. My feet point up while I walk, so I had to force my foot to drop in a neutral way so the midfoot and outer foot could strike at roughly the same time, and THEN the heel would GENTLY hit the floor. I have ANTERIOR pelvic tilt and walking this way, while trying to keep my torso upright, caused back pain, so I had to consciously tilt my pelvis (only a cm or so) to alleviate the pain, and if I lean my hips and torso forward while I walk and swing my arms properly to get my hips swinging a bit more and get my glutes involved, I can walk without pain, which I have never done before in my life. It's been ~1-2 months walking like this so far. Currently my favourite shoe to walk in is Crocs! and WITHOUT my shoe inserts(!!!!!!!!) I thought I would be wearing those for life. Turns out when you walk properly you don't need the assistance. I've been going for 1-2 mile walks multiple times per week. I went walking for almost 3 hours straight (!!) a week ago, and only had minor aches and pains and some blisters as a result, which is nothing compared to what I used to feel, and I was back walking again only a few days after it. Honestly this has been a life changing discovery for me. I hope anyone reading this who is in a similar spot, or who knows someone that has similar issues to what I had - share this with them and tell them to look into how them walk from the YT channel Grown and Healthy. It's honestly life changing stuff, but it'll take effort (not much, honestly). When I go walking I essentially "practice" walking properly. I still sometimes fall out of the correct walking pattern, but I can get back into the right rhythm within a couple steps. The sheer incompetency of my doctors and podiatrists in not knowing this and sharing it is insane. What's hilarious is that, when I injured my foot badly, I would walk on tip toe as that was the only way to alleviate the pain. I've since gone walking barefoot in the grass on fields near my house, for extended periods of time, without any pain. I've done little jogs and sprints with my dog, which I never expected to be able to do. For reference I'm in my late-20s, I'm around 70kg, and about a month ago I started going to the gym 2x per week, I walk there and back each time. AND I go for 1-2 walks per week in addition. AND I try to go swimming 1x per week, again walking there and back with no issues. And because I'm walking so much now, I'm getting tired during the day, which means I sleep better at night. None of this would be possible if I hadn't fixed my feet by learning how to walk correctly. My feet feel so much stronger while I'm walking around now. I'm furious that the health service in my country doesn't teach this as step-1 in fixing issues. I'm furious that PE classes don't teach this when we're children. Either you're lucky and walk normally or don't develop issues, or you have myriad issues and just ignore the pain.

I do your knee exercise at my local bus stop. Just that. Five minutes max a day. My knees work fine now. No pain. Down to you (and me because I actually do the work of course). Thank you.

Congrats to you and Cindy both

Nobody who hasn‘t had similar problems will understand how powerful this story is!

I'm actually going through a similar situation except that I am very distrustful of surgeons in general, and I pray I don't fall prey to them. I must apologize to some exceptional doctors out there, but they are few and far between. Staying in shape as far as possible is imperative, but it's extra hard since you have to surmount the accompanying pain. Like my dad used to say: "its dangerous be alive!".

Once upon a time, my dad was struck by a car and his maleolus bone of his left foot was left protruding, among other fractures. My dad was in his 80s. This extraordinary surgeon left him brand new. After just 6 weeks my dad was trying to climb the property fence to escape his "captors", that is, us his caregivers. Now he was demented after the morphine and general anesthesia. Bad luck! Surely an unavoidable evil. In 1984 my mom was hit by a car as she crossed the street walking to work in winter, was still dark. I saw a surgeon stitch her scalp from her occipital region to the frontal bone, after X-rays revealed no cranial fracture. A very successful procedure. She had sustained a hip fracture and other surgeons wanted to operate but her physician was opposed, he claimed she was very young and would heal on its own. Guess what, he was right. After only a couple of months she was doing her house chores and back to work. Physicians should be trained to think in systems, not body parts. Our bodies are not assembled, as in an assembly line, we are grown in the womb.

I'm' facing problems with my foot as well. I injured it in January. Nurse practitioner sent me for an ultrasound of my Achilles tendon, which I knew was wrong. It showed nothing, and I was sent for physical therapy. After 3 months of that not helping, I went back to the doctor who sent me for an X-ray. That also showed nothing. Doctor ordered an MRI. I live in Ontario - it takes a l-o-n-g time to get one. 4 to 5 months wait to have it covered under govt insurance. Yesterday, I went out of province to get an MRI which I paid for - the result? A torn tendon. Waiting now on a referral to a sports medicine clinic. I'm completely frustrated. I'm praying (I think) that I really need surgery, not physio. But now worried that surgery might get screwed up. Meanwhile, walking with a limp has really messed me up. Sore hip, back, leg muscles, and my muscle tone is non- existent. Praying this nightmare will end soon.

Please do a video on knowing if your muscle is torn!! My chiropractor wants me to get an MRI on my hip to see if the hip flexor(?) is torn and needs surgery! I feel like I can recover without and frankly can't afford an MRI anyway since I don't have any insurance. It's been months of pain and setbacks but I've been rehabbing it. I have a limp and don't have full hip extension when I walk but can get full hip extension in a deep forward stance position. Forcing my leg to bear my body weight actually makes the pain go away and I can walk almost normally until I sit down again. Strait leg raises are really hard. I'm young in my 20's and this has been so hard. I'm terrified of surgery. But also afraid to leave it too long and create lasting problems.

It's also depressing to lose your mobility and be in pain as you age.....just saying

Oh man, upright health turned into "anti medical" channel the last couple of months :) All these stories are pretty horrifying, honestly. But to be completely honest, out of these stories my take is I'm very happy to not live in the US. Where I live we also have not very reliable public medical institution, but if you find a decent private clinic you can get very good care. I stumbled upon this channel the last year when I had severe frozen shoulder symptom for a few months. I started doing regular exercise (literally every day), but the progress was basically absent. I didn't give up and continued doing exercise even though the range of motion was very limited. Later I decided to come to a physical therapist in order to get some help, and she told me that if I wasn't doing the exercise I'd most likely lose the whole range of motion and the problem would be much more severe. Moreover, she gave me even more exercise types in order to deal with the issue, so clearly she was working with intention to help me, not to get me into some surgery or anything. And what kicked off my rehabilitation was the physical therapy she provided, which was frankly not too expensive. After the PT the progress accelerated and just in a few months of regular exercise at home I got pretty much my entire range of motion back and was comfortably snowboarding during winter. So the moral of my story: if you have a problem with your body you have to be the main part of the solution and not fully rely on external "magic". But, depending on where you live, you most probably can find good doctors/clinic to provide the necessary help for you, not nearly all of them will only seek for your money, some will for sure be interested in providing help which they are supposed to (at least I hope so, albeit based on upright health videos I have a feeling US might be completely lacking this). Anyways, since that time I've been watching pretty much every single video on this channel as they are pretty inspiring and on point, I've been doing other types of exercise regularly and this channel is the main source for me, for which I'm extremely thankful. It's just a little bit strange to me how it becomes more and more "anti-medical" in a sense.

Why do you think they say doctors practice? You can't always put your whole belief in them. We need to look after ourselves. Research research research.