I've rolled my left ankle a million times, the worst being one time like a decade ago where I couldn't walk from the spot and it swelled into a giant mess. I didn't have medical insurance at the time, so I just stayed off it for a bit... then I braced it and started skating again. I basically ruined my ankle doing that, and ever since it's been totally floppy, sometimes buckling just when I am walking. I can't skate without a brace and flip tricks are really difficult.
I finally have insurance, so I got a referral to an ankle specialist. My PCP thinks people get a lot of unnecessary surgery, so he told me he was sending me to a doctor who would only suggest it as a last resort. I'm pretty bummed because the ankle specialist flexed my ankle for like three seconds and was like, "We'll do an x-ray and an MRI, but you need surgery." He said ligaments don't grow back... they're basically elastic bands that provide stability and once they tear or lose their elasticity, that's it... then he said I had weak ankles to start with (after looking at my right ankle, which I never really roll) and that I had completely fucked the ligaments in my left ankle, not in so many words.
The surgery is obviously elective. He said if you do the recovery right, it can be like a new ankle, but that's six months minimum of surgery>cast>brace>rehab. I'm not really sure what I want to do. I'm 34, and it's not so much the recovery time that worries me, but more the chance I'd go through this whole thing and it wouldn't fix my ankle. I have one of those lace-up braces with the three velcro straps-- I was worried that skating with that thing on for so long basically just stopped my ankle from getting stronger, but the ankle specialist said that when the ligaments are this far gone, the brace isn't stopping you from building strength, it's basically just giving you the stability that you'll never naturally get back. He said that if I'm wary of surgery, just stick with the brace.
We didn't talk much about the surgery because I hadn't had the MRI yet when I went, but the gist of it was that they go in and vacuum out all the cartilage and bits of whatever that are floating around in there (my left ankle is permanently at least 1.5x the size of my right one), then they put a post in the bone and somehow bond what's left of the ligament to that, so you get that tension back.
Anyone here had ankle surgery to try and fix ligaments?