Podiatry

Your feet and ankles support your entire body. If you injure your foot or ankles or experience problems in your feet and legs related to a disease or health condition, you realize how much you depend on your lower extremities.

Specialized Care in an Advancing Field

Whether you live with diabetes, arthritis, heart disease or another chronic condition that affects your foot and ankle health, or you need care for bunions, bursitis or similar issues, you can take advantage of the total joint care approach to concerns related to your feet, ankles and lower legs from expert podiatrists at OU Health in Oklahoma City, Edmond and Tulsa.

You and your doctors work with a highly trained, multidisciplinary team of OU Health healthcare providers, including limb preservation experts, which means you benefit from personalized care and the perspectives of many different medical specialists, all focused on improving your specific situation and overall function.

Common Foot & Ankle Conditions

When you choose OU Health to help care for your feet and ankles, your podiatrist takes the time to listen to your concerns, share useful information, evaluate your overall health and determine the source of your problem. Many foot and ankle issues stem from complications of other health conditions such as:

• Arthritis – May cause swelling or inflammation in joints of the foot; gout, a form of arthritis, causes intense and sudden pain
• Cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes – May reduce blood circulation to legs and feet that can create problems including:
  • Charcot foot – Pattern of bone and joint damage causing weakness
  • Diabetic foot ulcers – Slow-to-heal or non-healing sores or wounds
  • Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) – Blockage or narrowing of arteries in the legs and feet
  • Peripheral neuropathy – Damage to nerves in toes and fingertips
• Foot and ankle injury or infection – Sprain, strain, stress fracture, bursitis, puncture wounds
• Muscle and tendon problems – Inflammation or pain from daily stressors such as wearing high heels; Achilles tendinitis, heel pain
• Skin disorders – Athlete’s foot, corns and calluses, psoriasis, skin cancers of the foot, sweaty feet or warts
• Toe joint disorders and nerve-related conditions – Pain, stiffness or damage to joint cartilage; bunions, hammer toes, neuromas
• Toenail problems – Thick toenails, ingrown toenails, toenail fungus

Expert Treatment for Foot & Ankle Problems

After your OU Health podiatrist diagnoses your ankle or foot problem, you’ll work together to understand your treatment options, including exercise and therapeutic approaches, medications or reconstructive surgery.

You benefit from OU Health’s innovative surgical techniques that use smaller incisions and create less scarring, which helps speed your recovery. In addition, advancements in biologics such as lab-processed human tissue grafts allow for faster healing.

You and your OU Health podiatric medicine care team can choose from a variety of methods to ease your ankle and foot problems, including:

• Charcot neuroarthropathy reconstruction – Stops bone and joint damage; helps avoid the possibility of amputation with advanced intervention
• Gastrocnemius recession surgery – Releases or lengthens the calf muscle; also performed with repair of plantar fasciitis, mid-foot pain or ankle immobility; often performed endoscopically
• Ilizarov external fixation for lower extremities – Uses a halo-type stabilization frame to promote proper bone alignment during healing
• Implants – Uses artificial joint connector to help you retain flexibility; may involve small joint implants or artificial ankles
• Limb preservation – Collaboration with OU Health cardiovascular interventional surgery to salvage/retain lower extremities affected by peripheral artery disease (PAD)
• Orthotics and prosthetics – Use specially made devices inside your shoes to provide foot support and alignment
• Podiatric surgery – Repairs major foot or ankle trauma, injury, fracture; mends ligaments, tendons, tissue damage from accident or mishap; may include support of Ilizarov technique for stability; repairs bunions; fuses bones in a joint; removes bone-like tissue growths; realigns bones in a joint
• Tissue graft – Enhances wound recovery from disease, pressure points or injury to ankle and foot

Your Expert Podiatric Medicine Team

No matter what your age or where you live in Oklahoma or across the region, you can rely on the board-certified podiatrists at OU Health for top-quality care of your feet, ankles and lower legs.

In addition to teaching the next generation of health professionals, your OU Health podiatric medicine providers take the time to listen to your concerns as they apply their years of worldwide education to your particular condition.

While staying on top of the rapidly advancing field of foot and ankle surgery, your specially trained OU Health podiatrists continually seek the best treatment options for you.