Is my tibia misaligned?

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I thought 0-5 degrees was the threshold for alignment.

Mine seems like it is way above 5 degrees, is this ok? Plus.. its been almost 3 months now and I can walk just fine with my right leg but my left leg has been having weird pains in the knee, below the knee, in the lower tibia area and when I walk on my left leg I land on the front half of my feet. I think because of the angle of the bone my left leg naturally lands on the front of the feet instead of in the middle. I dont have this problem at all with my right leg. Is this normal? Did anyone else have any sort of misalignment issues with their leg or legs?

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whoa images too big, here we go

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I think you already posted this. Some said it's okay, some said it's not okay. Your doctor said it's okay.

Are you still lengthening?

On the deformity, you need to get a second opinion from a doctor. You can send an email to Paley and ask him but obviously his response will be brief and cannot be consituted as medical advice via email. Some doctors offer Skype consultations (Parihar and Giotikas I think) apparently. That might elicit a better response.

Good luck and let us know.

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Hey, yea I asked before but I just did some angle measurements which are new so thought I would ask again with this new info. From my understanding it’s acceptable from 0-5 degrees off, my right leg is only 1-2 degrees off so almost fully straight, my left is off by around 8 degrees so that’s what I’m worried about.

I’m almost done lengthening should be done in the next week or 2. I’m just curious if anyone else had this issue and if they had to do another surgery to correct the deformity. I don’t know how my leg would feel once fully healed but right now my left leg is in much worse shape than my right. Functionally it’s almost impossible to walk on the left leg, my right leg is completely fine. And even exercising or standing up straight I’m having a lot of issues with the left leg, again the right one is fine. I feel like I could be walking quite well if both legs were like the right one.

So just curious if someone with a similar situation needed a secondary surgery or if things were fine after the legs were fully healed.

Which doctor out of the 2 you mentioned would you recommend for a second opinion?

Parihar or Giotikas?

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Another side by side comparison (left side is right leg, right side is left leg)

That left alignment does look pretty scary though right

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Here is a photo of my left leg, you can actually see the misalignment (top bone protruding) from the outside, not just through x rays.

Its a slope down, ---\.....  kinda like this when I look at my leg. So, if anyone else has this issue I would love to hear about it. Or maybe I just had bad luck with choosing my surgeon and I'm the only one with this on my leg :[

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I understand. It's nice to see you being proactive about your worry.

If they charge the same, I would think Parihar because he is more experienced and he seems to do these routinely as per his youtube.

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Thanks, I mean if anyone else ever has had this problem I would love to hear what you did to solve it.

My surgeon is not helping at all. He just said, nail is secured in place, and he said all the pains I’m feeling only in my left leg are normal (I feel none of this in my right leg, especially the knee problems, I can’t even straighten out my left leg without immense pain unlike my right leg, when I go swimming my left knee makes clicking sounds like when you crack your knuckle, it will click twice when I go from bent to straight, that can’t be right.. right?). I’ve sent him x ray after x ray and he’s blaming the x ray machines for not taking proper pictures. So.. for someone so avoidance on helping his patient in fear that he created the deformity. I now need to try to find out on my own what the truth is. It sucks when your own surgeon is so in denial they start blaming the x ray machines for not taking proper photos... he said my EOS x ray cannot be trusted. So weird.

Are surgeons usually so dismissive of patient queries or patient problems or is it just my surgeon? 

I have been trying to ask him if I should fix this deformity before bone hardens and I don’t mind switching to an external fixator after I’ve achieved my length. He ignores this and won’t answer my concern. Weird right?

So I only have been with 1 surgeon.. I don’t know how other surgeons are in this regard.

So really anyone that may have had the same problem, I would love to listen to what you did in my situation.

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Hi marathonrunner
I am sorry to hear that you have some problems in your left leg.
I can't tell you whether your left leg is misaligned or not.  However, what I can tell you is that your screw in left ankle is seriously bent. This is one indication that something is going wrong.  My first suspicion is that your left leg must be super tight as compared to the right leg.  When your muscles are so tight, screws or even nails can be bent.  So I think you need to slow down or even stop lengthening until your left leg feels better.  Don't try hard to walk or to do PT.  Just take an easy until you feel better.  Your bent screw may or should come back to be straight. 
Your left leg does seem to be protruding on the top segment of broken area.  I am not so sure whether it was done during the surgery or lengthening, since I am not a doctor. Perhaps it could be within a normal range of variation.  Ask your doctor.
However, I am also a little bit concerned about your bone growth. They seem to grow quite slow.  You'd better slow down for a while (1-2 weeks) to see how bones grow.

Good luck,

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Oh dear.. you mean I might have get non-union between the bones? I've actually slowed down since around 1 week ago. Instead of doing .66 daily I am now doing only .33 daily. Maybe I will slow down more and do .33 every other day.

For the misalignment, its been like this ever since my first x ray 7-10 days post surgery. The angle has always been protruding like this. My doctor kept saying its normal, its normal but after 3 months, and comparing my left leg to my right leg when I walk, it certainly doesn't feel normal.

Yea.. I noticed the screw in my left leg being bent as well. I was considering taking it out earlier to prevent breakage, my fibula is connecting well so if I take out the screw prematurely it might be ok.

My left leg is tighter than my right but not by a huge amount. I do have some pain in the front shin area (lower tibia bone) on my left leg though. I've never had any external injuries nor did I ever knock my legs on anything (I'm still using a wheelchair and I'm coming up on 3 months). But the pain in the front shin area (left leg) comes when I exercise or stand up to stretch my calves. Since the bones are somewhat misaligned to me it feels like the bottom part of the nail is pushing against the front part of my left leg. I have no other idea as to why I'm getting this pain there as I dont have any external injuries at all, its all internal. So the 3 areas in my left leg that is giving me pain is directly at the knee, below the knee, and lower tibia shin area.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is when I try to walk, my left leg tends to land on the front half near my toes instead of in the middle (or middle back). So it is hard to walk normally even using crutches. When I walk I usually land on the rear of my foot, it makes a rolling motion to the front of my foot and then I switch legs and alternate. But because of how the bone is aligned, my left foot can't really land on the rear of my foot, its hard to make that rolling motion to the front of my foot as well. I don't know how to overcome this with the alignment that I have. So I wonder if other patients out there have had this experience and how they were able to overcome it, especially to walk normally, how do you do it? I just can't get my feet to walk normally even with a walker.