PETERBOROUGH (Peterborough Evening Telegraph), December 11, 2007: In Peterborough we're lucky enough to have a doctor who can carry out ankle replacements, which is a procedure that can help thousands of us walk into a happy old age. Jemma Walton finds out.
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Aruind Kumar (right) with his team (from left) physios Emma Cranfield and Leah Warnock, bio-mechanical specialist John Chadwick and RGN Betty Arnold at the Fitzwilliam HospitalAS Trevor Norbury sailed towards the floor on a parachute jump simulator he looked down, realised he was in trouble and felt sick.
He had jumped once before, when he was a lad, but back then he had landed on a deep pile of grass mats.
Now, he looked down and saw a very sad-looking single mattress. "From 60 feet in the air it looked like a postage stamp," he said.
And it might as well have been a stamp for all the good it did him – he landed with one foot on it, one foot off, and his ankle snapped like a dry twig.
This was back in 1990, and doctors managed to screw his ankle back together, but three years ago he began to get pain and arthritis in it because of the smash all those years ago.
"Walking was really painful," he said. "And as I'm on my feet all day repairing bikes at Robinsons in Cowgate, it meant that work was a struggle."
Twenty years ago, Trevor would have had one option – he could have had the bones in his ankle fused together, which would have stopped the pain but would have left him unable to flex his foot and ankle and walk normally.
But thanks to the help of an orthapedic consultant based at Fitzwilliam Private Hospital in Bretton he was able to have something that few of us have heard of, but many of us could benefit from one day: an ankle replacement.
We have one consultant in Peterborough who can do the operations, but at a recent meeting with the GPs who refer people with ankle complaints for treatment, he was shocked to find that most of them didn't know that there was such a thing as an ankle replacement.
Consultant Arvind Kumar said: "My aims are simple – I want my patients to have a painless, stable walk, and achieve a normal gait cycle. That is difficult with an ankle fusion, but not with a replacement."
Over the past few years Mr Kumar has replaced 55 ankles, with patients coming from both the public and private sectors. He estimates that each year around 2,000 people in the UK will need the procedure, which is still a relatively new one.
Anyone can be referred to him on the NHS, all they have to do is be referred by their GP.
Arthritis – which can be caused by a trauma such as a broken ankle or simply ageing – is the thing that wears an ankle down so that it needs replacing. And as arthritis can appear when you are 30 or 70, Mr Kumar has operated on patients of all ages.
Mr Kumar explains the procedure to patients John Ellis (left) and Trevor Norby.Trevor Norbury, of Charles Cope Road, Orton Waterville, (now 64) had his operation on June 11 this year and was up and walking two months later.
New ankle transformed Brian's life
BRIAN Holdich has walked 14 marathons in his time. But in 2001, as he was strolling around the New York City marathon to raise cash for a disabled kids' charity, he knew his longhaul days were over.
An X-ray of an ankle replacement.
Because he had a nagging pain in his right anklethat just wouldn't go away.
He had had it ever since he fell over in the street and badly bruised it, and year by year it got more and more painful.
"I ended up walking with a stick, Brian (72), of Elm Close, Market Deeping, said.
"It was an ache that was with me all the time, everywhere I walked. But then my GP referred me to Mr Kumar and I had my operation four years ago in January. I'll never be the same as I was, but I'm not in pain any more, and I can walk – although I don't think I'll be doing any more marathons.
But I can still get around, which would have been much harder if I had had my ankle fused."
He said: “I feel fine now, and would advise anyone told that they need to have their ankle fused to ask their GP about having a replacement.”
The replacement is a sophisticated arrangement of cobalt and chrome, and all patients facing the prospect of having one have one question first and foremost that they like to ask Mr Kumar’s first assistant, John Chadwick.
Not whether they would ever be able to walk properly and painlessly again, not how long it would take them to recover, but whether they would set off metal detectors when they go through airport security.
“It’s funny what people worry about,” laughed Mr Chadwick. “And the answer seems to be yes for some people, no for others.”
©2007 Johnston Press Digital Publishing
