I want to thank Dr. Senatore for assisting in caring for this patient and helping us hit it out of the park!
John Senatore DPM teamed with me on this patient, allowing us to not only take care of her Achilles tendon "Hagland's" deformity that was causing severe pain in the heel where the Achilles tendon attaches to her heel, while at the same time, I was able to perform a decompression of the Proximal Tibial Nerve at the soleal sling to help complete her care for the residual numbness, tingling, and buzzing sensations that were still present on the sole of the foot after a previous tarsal tunnel release with decompression of the medial plantar, lateral plantar, and calcaneal nerves performed at the ankle and foot gave her about 50% relief of those symptoms. While 50% relief of one's numbness and tingling is better than living with what she previously presented with, she had findings up in the calf that indicated that the tibial nerve "upstream" was also compressed. We call this a "double crush." What symptoms did she have that suggested this upstream compression? She had severe pain in the back of the calf with walking, persistent numbness, and tingling in the entire sole of the foot, perhaps a trace of weakness in great toe flexion, AND she NO longer had a Tinel sign at the tarsal tunnel in the heel because we had decompressed that area, releasing the nerve, and it had been recovering for 6 months. This points the problem up in the calf.
She presents back to the office about 6 weeks after surgery with nearly 100% improvement in the pain in the back of the calf, the sensation in the sole of the foot, AND thanks to Dr. Senatore, she is walking with much less pain in the Achilles tendon where it attaches to the heel. We could not be more excited for her!
I call that a "double team and a double crush."