Bunions can be very painful to anyone who suffers from them. They can make walking painful and can make it very uncomfortable to wear shoes. Bunions occur at the base of your big toe and happen because your big toe gets pushed into your other toes. It can cause the bones in your toe to actually deform, which can make the whole situation even more painful. If you have bunions, you should go see a doctor to see what kinds of treatment are open to you. One of the treatments is bunion surgery. There are different kinds of surgery that you can have in order to get rid of the bunions.
Arthrodesis
This type of bunion surgery helps to treat people who also have arthritis in that joint. This type of surgery is also generally used only in the most severe bunion cases. The way that it works is that the surgeon cleans out the arthritis by removing the parts of the toe that are affected by it, which is generally the joint but may stretch into other parts of the bone as well. Once the surgeon has removed the damaged areas, they will then install special screws that will screw the bones together while they are healing. The screws may be left in the bone permanently in order to help stabilize the bone, or they may be removed sometime later.
Exostectomy
In this surgical procedure, your doctor is going to actually shave the bunion off. Your doctor may decide to do this in combination with other procedures. This type of surgery isn't as common as the other surgeries are, and you are more likely to have this kind of surgery if your bunion is fairly mild.
Osteotomy
Osteotomy is actually the most common bunion surgical procedure. When you have this procedure done, your surgeon is going to make some small incisions around your toe. Through those incisions, your doctor is going to insert some hardware. That hardware will be screws or pins, and they are designed to go into your toe joint and pull the bones and joint back into alignment. That will keep your big toe from continuing to push against your other toes and it will relieve the pain and discomfort you are in.
Which surgery you get depends on your doctor and the severity of your bunion. Your doctor will know best what will work in your situation, and do what they can to help you feel better.