There’s no turning back in healing a case of calcaneal osteomyelitis

Posted on February 4, 2013 by

I’ve gone a few days without posting, not because I haven’t wanted to, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and write an entry for my loyal readers.

You will already know about this case as I have been telling this patient’s story since the beginning of the year. His Mother Courage led him through some tough times that thankfully haven’t been repeated, ever since she willfully checked him out of a Barcelona hospital and brought him to Madrid so that we could treat him here. After that, we operated on his tibial pilon fracture and his calcaneus, which was infected, and which we reconstructed after cleaning out the infected part and applying antibiotic bone cement. However, after three months, the infection came back.

We first had to remove the entire affected part of the bone, leaving only a small part of the healthy bone, and then insert a cement spacer with antibiotics. In addition, the patient had to be kept on intravenous antibiotics for several weeks. After six weeks, the calcaneus was clean, and we could go on to do a double vascularized fibula bone graft, that is, we removed his fibula with the artery and vein pedicles, insertig it afterwards in the place of the missing calcaneus, stitiching the artery and vein to the corresponding ones of the tibialis posterior (thanks to the good work of Alex Lovic). Three months after the last operation, the patient is once again able to walk, and although he has some significant muscular atrophy, you can see in the video that his gait is once again normal.

We were able to cure this calcaneal osteomyelitis thanks to a new and innovative treatment. This patient, faced with the supposed impossibility of curing this problem, had previously been suggested a leg amputation. Now he’s cured and he can walk normally despite muscle atrophy. For all those who suffer from this grave injury in the foot, I want you to know that it IS possible to cure it and to return to a normal life with normal feet that can work and walk. You mustn’t throw in the towel or give in to “treatments” such as amputation, which are harmful and anticuated. At IICOP, we can save these feet from ending up in hospital dumpsters.

You can see in this video the patient’s ability to walk three months after his operation, and I hope he will once again return to the streets of Barcelona to go to Camp Nou and watch Barca football club play.