Foot & Ankle Care

If you experience an injury in your lower legs, ask CentraCare to connect you to a fellowship-trained foot and ankle surgeon. You’ll receive specialized treatment that can ease pain not only in your feet, but also in your pelvis and back. Let us help you walk, stand and move around more comfortably again.

Doctors & Care Team Locations

Foot Pain & Injuries

Make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon when you need care for:

Achilles tendonitis – Inflammation or tears in the tendon on the back of your ankle and calf
Ankle osteoarthritis – Breakdown in the cartilage (cushion) between ankle bones
Charcot foot – Change in the foot’s shape and weakened bones due to nerve damage and diabetes
Fractures – Jones fractures, metatarsal fractures, broken ankles and stress fractures
Lisfranc injury – Damaged bones or ligaments in the middle of your foot
Peroneal tendonitis – Inflamed tendons along your ankle and the side of your foot
Plantar fasciitis – Heel pain due to an inflamed ligament
Toe problems – Bunions, gout, hammertoe, mallet toe, claw toe and Morton’s neuroma

Nonsurgical Foot Care

Your treatment may start with conservative approaches, which have a lower risk of side effects than surgery. Depending on your condition, your health care team might recommend one or more of these options:

Physical therapy – Builds strength and flexibility with exercise, stretches and hands-on techniques
Orthotics (shoe inserts) – Support proper alignment of your lower body so you stand and walk with less pain
Casts or braces – Protect and support an injured foot as it heals

Injections

If you need an injection, your orthopedic surgeon may use ultrasound imaging to precisely guide the medicine to the right place, giving you more relief. Ask us about:

Cortisone (steroid) injection – Reduces inflammation and pain with a higher dose of medication than you could take by mouth
Hyaluronic acid injections – Use a natural lubricant to help a stiff joint move more easily
Platelet-rich plasma injections – Deliver a high dose of platelets from your body to the site of an injury to speed up the healing process

You can receive injections in a clinic, so you don’t need to visit the hospital for treatment. That makes your care more affordable and convenient.

Surgical Foot Care

If necessary, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon can:

Replace an arthritic ankle joint with a natural-feeling implant to give you more freedom of movement
Fuse (join) arthritic ankle bones to stop them from rubbing painfully against each other
Fix or reconstruct a torn ligament or tendon
Repair a fracture
Restore the alignment of a misshapen foot
Reposition bones in your big toe to treat a bunion

Arthroscopy: Less Invasive Surgery

Your surgeon will make the smallest possible incisions, so you recover sooner. This approach may use an arthroscope—a thin tube with a light and camera that shows the inside of your joint. A type of minimally invasive surgery, arthroscopy is safer and causes less scarring than traditional surgery that creates a long incision. You’ll likely go home the same day as your procedure.