Waiting for knee joint replacement, but broken great toe

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First of all, your belief that nothing can or needs to be done for a fracture of a great toe is absolutely incorrect. That might be essentially so for most lesser toe fractures, but not for one of the great toe, as it is the only truly biomechanically functional toe on each foot. It is essential that a suspected fracture of the great toe be definitively identified and appropriately treated, and I would venture a guess that in light of your subsequent experience, you probably now agree with me. What is now going on is anyone's guess without an actual evaluation, which apparently you have yet to obtain . . or somehow neglected to mention it. The fact that the toe is now deformed would seem to give substance to my opinion that it needed evaluation from the get-go as well as treatment dictated by the results of that evaluation. I gather that you are using the terms, "heal" and "becoming symptom free" as synonyms, unless you are saying that you have a non-union of the fracture site. But how would you or I know that, as you have mentioned no examination and even stated that your orthopedist was unaware of the toe problem, though I don't know why you would not have shared that with him/her. I don't think that you should target your seeking of care to merely pain relief, but actual correction of the neglected toe problem precipitating it. From what you have said, I doubt that cortico-steroids will result in extended relief and certainly not a cure. You will have to allow the doctor whom you select to treat the toe determine if such injections are appropriate and for how long. Whether you choose a podiatrist or an orthopedist should not be a factor, but your choice of a doctor should be for sound medical reasons such as credentials and peer recognition.

 

Thanks very much for your help Foot Doc. What a dummy and this is not funny.
I was told by an orthopedic surgeon (not the ortho who did the knee surgery) but one I work with in an ER, that there was nothing to do with the great toe but wait two months for it to heal. I have heard that advice given to patients before and believed it to be true, It's exactly two months and now it is deformed and painful. I should have mentioned it to my ortho before surgery. But in my defense the knee pain was distracting me from the foot pain. The night before surgery I showed my husband my toe and swollen foot. We were both shocked. I'd been walking around thinking the foot pain was referred pain from my swollen knee. I never bothered to look at my foot.

I'll get this examined and reset priorities. Very appreciative of your input. Thanks for the gentle reprimand.
Nancy