This real patient was compensated for the time they took to share their personal experience with the InternalBrace procedure.
Eight weeks after undergoing ankle surgery with an InternalBrace ligament augmentation procedure, Leah D is excited about her future and enjoying her new-found confidence. It’s been a long journey leading to this positive outlook for the young athletic trainer who spent a good deal of her life dealing with setbacks from a serious ankle injury that led to years of chronic pain and recurrent ankle sprains.
Leah’s problems began when she was an 11-year-old gymnast. Suddenly cut off by a teammate when she was running during practice, Leah rolled her ankle. She was diagnosed with an avulsion fracture and a grade 3 ankle sprain. A family friend who was a podiatrist put her in a cast and prescribed no weightbearing for a month. The first day she put away her crutches, she rolled her ankle again. She was able to slowly ease into physical therapy and wore an ankle brace, but still, even with the brace, she sprained her ankle over and over again. Her ankle injuries prevented her from reaching her potential in gymnastics. “It was frustrating to be held back from a sport I loved because of chronic ankle instability.”
Fast forward to college, where Leah made the cheerleading squad but continued to deal with ankle pain. “I kept waking up with a swollen ankle,” she said. On the recommendation of a foot and ankle surgeon who said that her ankle was not stable and in order for her to pursue any kind of athletics at the collegiate level, she would need to have her ankle reconstructed, she had Brostrom surgery. Leah says that after the surgery, “I was not the same. I did not have the level of explosion [for cheerleading] that I’d had previously and I had to stop cheering.”
Leah threw her concentration into her chosen career as an athletic trainer. “I always wanted to be an athletic trainer, ever since I hurt my ankle. Because I see what trainers can do to help athletes and I wanted to do that. I knew I could make a difference in an athlete’s life." Still, she was plagued by limitations from her ankle instability, so on the advice of another orthopedic surgeon who suggested an allograft procedure, Leah underwent a second ankle operation 2 years later. Unfortunately, the results were no better.
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With another decade passing, Leah began to think “I’m going to have this issue the rest of my life. At this point, I knew my ligaments were stretched out and they weren’t working. I had no hope after two failed procedures.” Then she met a student athlete who had similar problems with chronic ankle instability and had undergone a revolutionary new procedure that left her feeling her reconstructed ankle was more stable than her uninjured ankle. Leah decided to contact her ankle surgeon, who explained to her how InternalBrace ligament augmentation could help her. She believed in the science, and decided “why wait?”
Leah has been amazed at the quick progress she’s made since her ankle surgery. She says she had no problems after 2 days and that she was walking in a boot on day 4. “I was able to start physical therapy 3 weeks post-op as opposed to 6 or 8 weeks with the previous surgeries.”
Eight weeks after surgery with InternalBrace ligament augmentation, “I have zero pain, zero instability, and it feels great… I’m looking forward to trying new things now… I feel like I have a new ankle!”
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