The Short Toe, Brachymetatarsia… & getting it fixed
February 2021, before my brachymetatarsia surgery
For as long as I can remember my toes always looked different than everyone else’s. The forth toe on both feet have always been shorter, but my family never made me feel weird about it. They let me know it’s just how God made me, but that didn’t stop other people from questioning it and making rude comments. I was in 9th grade when I realized my feet weren’t supposed to be like that and that everyone isn’t nice. Two things happened to me, the first I was at a mall and another little boy told his friends my feet looked like a pit bulls, the second I was in english class when my crush looked down and said “ew, what’s wrong with your feet”. I went home and threw away any issues that exposed my toes, I learned how to pick sandals that kept the fourth toe hidden, I wore water shoes when I went swimming, I became an expert. But I still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me and how to fix it. Every doctor I visited told me the same thing, nothing could be done, they’ve never seen anything like it before and had no clue what it was. It was in college that a google search finally left me with a name for it, brachymetatarsia, and I had it on both feet.
Years of research led me down a rabbit hole of not widely available information, but there was a fix. It took me until 26 to finally pull the trigger on setting up an appointment with a doctor because the fix itself felt so intimidating. The first doctor that I went to see told me what I read on Google, I would need a fixator that would be turned for months in order to lengthen the toes over time (I later found out this wasn’t true for my condition). She tried to talk me out of getting the surgery done saying they would need to order so many pieces of equipment and that it would be too expensive, that I would more than likely lose the toes during the process. But I was determined, I set an appointment with another doctor, Dr. Siddiqui at the limb lengthening center at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, MD. When I met Dr. Siddiqui he might’ve been the first person to look at my feet and not have questions, not be shocked, he knew right away what it was. And after our consultation he told me I wouldn’t need fixators at all. My toes actually had enough length to get one step surgery, which I signed up for. They put me to sleep and I woke up in a boot. We had to do two seperate surgeries for each foot so the healing process was pretty long, but still not as long as wearing a fixator for months, so I was happy. I am in love with my new feet!!! My surgery cost me around $1,400 after insurance which I was able to make a payment plan for. I am able to wear heels and walk barefoot all of that now. No more hiding my toes thanks to Dr. Siddiqui and the International Center for Limb Lengthening https://www.limblength.org/
