WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — No one likes to talk about bunions, but they probably affect more people than you think. Doctors said millions of people have them, and there are more than 500,000 surgeries on them every year.
Dr. Bradley Lamm with the Paley Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida has spent the last five years inventing an internal device and step-by-step technique.
The device just came out this month, and he has completed 10 surgeries, including one on a Vero Beach woman who had heard the horror stories of trauma and pain from bunion surgeries.
"It has not been the case at all with this (surgery)," said the patient from Vero Beach.
Lamm created an internal device called a mini bunion by crossroads.
"The reason this is so successful and lasts forever is that it corrects the bone alignment and soft tissue alignment all in one surgery through a small incision," Lamm said.
A bunion is simply a bump on the inside of the big toe, which causes the big toe to drift towards the second toe and sometimes overlap. The pain caused by them can be extreme.
Lamm described this as a minimally-invasive surgery where a device is entered through a tiny incision.
"You get better motion and quicker recovery, back on their feet and regular shoes in one month," Lamm said.
Now the burdensome bunion could be a thing of the past, especially for a once active woman, who loved walking and swimming.
"I'm hoping to be able to get back into it again and that's very exciting for me because I gave up so much that I loved," said the patient from Vero Beach.
This story was original published by Tory Dunnan on WPTV .
