Liz Franc Ligament Tear?

just seconding that unless I slept through all my ortho/sports med stuff, that a liz franc injury usually refers to a specific type of fracture. it's a tough dx without a x-ray and more likely a bone scan. you probably ought to see if you can get in with a sports med specialist. good luck and hope whatever it turns out to be heals quickly.

A-HA! That's why I was not getting any reliable information from a google search, I was spelling it wrong! (this is a clear drawback of text-based search engines, yes? It's like trying to look up a word in a dictionary to find out how to spell it -- you can't spell it, so you can't look it up to learn how to spell it!) Lisfranc, as in a (possibly apocryphal) reference to Napolean Bonaparte's surgeon -- I was thinking it was some German or Austrian name (Franz Liszt?) not a french spelling: Lisfranc! And yes, the name applies to the type of injury, not to the ligament itself.

Okay, now with this additional information, I think I'm better able to understand what the podiatrist was describing. He was a veritable font of information, but I'm afraid I didn't understand what he was saying at the time. It makes more sense now . . . what I think happened is that he very quickly diagnosed the type of injury, and the whole rest of the visit was devoted to gauging the severity of the injury in order to choose a course of treatment.

So, what I think was going on . . .

• The podiatrist was asking a lot of questions to try and diagnose the original injury -- which I think happened in a raquetball game when I was wearning crappy flat-soled shoes -- to try and determine if I had any swelling of the foot, external bruising, etc etc. I didn't have any of that, just a twinge in the game, and then the occasional twinge when standing flat-footed for several months afterward.


• The podiatrist was trying to determine the severity of pain by discussing my running routine, manipulating the foot, etc. Basically there's no real pain, just an occasional twinge when I'm standing flat footed or wearning flat soled shoes, and then pushing off the ground with my toes/forefoot.


• The podiatrist was taking a number of x-rays from different angles, blowing them up to larger films (like 11x17 size, which I thought was pretty big) and then spending what I though was an inordinate amount of time trying to judge angles and distances. What I didn't understand then was that he was trying to figure out the distance between the metatarsals -- which I think he judged as 1mm or less, which seems to be less than the widely-used 2mm distance as a hallmark of serious tears or fractures.

So, based on that activity, combined with my newly-acquired knowledge of this injury (Thanks, Dr. Hammer!) I'd say that what's going on is that I was diagnosed with a very minor Lisfranc injury, not requiring immobilization in a cast nor requiring surgical intervention. So I think I'm going to go with the prescription of no running and orthotics for 2-4 weeks, and if that doesn't show improvement (I'm scheduled to return for another set of xrays at that time) I'll seek out a second opinion from an orthopod. I'm figuring that since I've been running hard on this injury for months, that several weeks of no running and orthotics won't injure me any further.

I was diagnosed with the same thing back in 2002 and had surgery in Feb. 2003. They had to put in 6 screws as well as cutting my achilles. It took probably 6 months after the surgery to really feel like using the foot was normal. I still have some twinges every now and then but it is getting better.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH! AAAARGHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Stop scaring me like that! Screws! Six Screws! Cutting the Achilles!


AAAAArrrrghhghghghghghghghghgghhhh!

9 weeks ago i had an 85% tear on my liz franc ligament. I was playong football at the time and was in a lot of pain. my first action was to get an xray and they said i was fine, so i toughed it out for 3 more weeks before i got an MRI that told me the news. yesterday i got my cast off. Walkin has been dificult merely because i havent walked on it for a while (i hope). Everytime i walk with my recoverd foot i feel an uncomfortable feeling near my toes. Is this the ping my doctor and others have been talking about? Is surgery to much of an overkill? sports is very important to me, will this injury prohibit me from doing anything and will the ping feeling ever go away?