Subject: Doctors, getting 2nd/3rd opinions

I'm usually careful in researching doctors and have had a number of excellent ones. At times you get lazy or things happen and the doctor isn't so good.

Last spring I started feeling a bruise like pain on the bottom of my foot (the bony area on the foot where the big toe joins the foot). That foot had an injury 20+ years ago and it never healed (mostly my fault) so pain wasn't unfamiliar to me although it was at a different location. Since my wife and I were walking a lot I just figured it was a bruise and would go away. It didn't so I went to this podiatrist and eventually got a MRI. I found out later that the podiatrist doesn't look at the MRI and only reads the report.

The item he immediately got concerned about was a loss of blood flow to the 2nd toe. The 2nd issue was a broken bone where the big toe joins the foot. Unfortunately he did not explain things to me. He wanted me to wear a boot and said the injury could take a long time to heal. We are now 6 months later. He just kept telling me to wear the boot and get a new MRI every ~6 weeks.

Around Halloween I got a 2nd opinion which also wasn't very useful. Finally last week I went to this specialist that everyone recommended. I took the MRIs with me and he also took xrays there. Then he explained I had 3 issues. One was a recent minor fracture that was likely due to me trying to walk on the outside of the foot to avoid pain when I stopped using the boot (based on 2nd dr's rec). The item causing me pain was the broken bone. Often this bone is difficult to heal and may require surgery to remove (for a non-athlete like me nearing 60 it should cause no real long term issues).

The 3rd thing I had was the blood flow issue (Friedburg Infarction?) that the podiatrist obsessed over. This doctor said it looked like that bone had suffered a direct impact at some point. Once he said that I remembered ~25 years ago pitching softball and someone hit a low line drive I couldn't get my foot away from and I broke several toes. So this "issue" is really a very old one (back then I'm not sure how common MRIs were) and isn't likely to heal. The specialist confirmed it was an old injury.

So if I hadn't gotten a 2nd or in this case a 3rd opinion I might still be walking around in a boot trying to fix an issue that isn't going to get fixed. As far as the broken bone goes, the one causing me the pain to see the podiatrist at the beginning, it feels a bit better now. The specialist gave me a pad to wear to try and take some pressure off the bone and said to give it 6 weeks and if it is still causing me pain then surgery is the likely next option.

It is nice to finally have a resolution to something that was getting very frustrating.