With each step you take, stress is channeled through your feet and toes, and over the course of years and decades this stress can lead to natural degeneration of some soft tissues. This degeneration is commonly felt in the biggest joint in your toe, which is located on your great toe. When this joint degenerates and becomes arthritic, you’ll experience pain and limited mobility with each step, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
In the past, there was little doctors could do for toe joint arthritis other than to get the patient on a treatment plan that would alleviate symptoms and slow the progression of the disease, but doctors really couldn’t reverse the damage that had been done. Fusion operations limited painful movement in the joint but left the patient with restricted mobility, but a relatively new option has become a gamechanger for patients with big toe arthritis – the synthetic implant.
Synthetic Joint Replacement
It’s called the Cartiva implant, and it is a synthetic polymer implant that mimics the function of a healthy big toe joint. Aside from acting just like a healthy big toe joint, the device offers numerous advantages, including:
Increased Range of Motion – Unlike the fusion operation, the synthetic device allows for more range of motion. Instead of limiting mobility, the Cartiva implant may actually allow you increased range of motion because movement will no longer be painful.
No Revisions – Unlike some bigger joints like knees and hips, the design of the toe implant is such that a patient should never need a second operation because of wear and tear. For the majority of patients, the implant will do its job for life.
Pain Elimination – Unlike the fusion operation which involves limiting movement in a painful joint, the Cartiva implant gets rid of the painful joint so you can get on with a pain-free life and get back to the activities you love to do.
If you want to learn more about the implant, check out some of the posts Dr. Silverman has put together on the subject, or give us a call today!
