Cara is a busy mom of three small children in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. When she’s not trying to keep up with them, she works in medical sales, enjoys running and her gym routine. Unfortunately, her active lifestyle became overwhelmingly hard to sustain because of her painful bunion; a bone deformity caused by an unstable joint that allows the big toe to drift out of alignment and progressively worsen over time.

Not being able to take any downtime from work or from caring for her children, Cara turned to her husband Terry Clarke, a successful podiatrist, for suggestions after exhausting non-surgical resources to manage her bunion pain. Since The American College of Physicians Ethics Manual states that “physicians should avoid treating themselves, close friends, or members of their own family,” he referred his wife to his colleague Dr. Jason Miller of Premier Orthopaedics of Exton, PA to discuss the possibility of Cara undergoing Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction^™– a procedure that he believed in himself and utilized in his own practice. The Lapiplasty® Procedure would correct the bunion in all three dimensions and use patented titanium technology to permanently secure the unstable joint, helping to reduce the risk of bunion recurrence.

Dr. Miller explained that after traditional bunion surgery, up to 70% of patients report that their bunion eventually returns because the root cause of the bunion was never addressed.1 But in Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction^™, the recurrence rate is 3.% in a 13-month study.2 Cara was interested in learning more about the Lapiplasty® Procedure after hearing those stats. With Cara’s shoes no longer fitting correctly, and her gym routine becoming bothersome, she decided to get rid of her bunion with Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction^™. “I’d been dealing with this pain for so long. I wanted a solution to relieve my bunion pain and give me the best chance of avoiding recurrence.”

While not the initial reason for having her bunion surgery, Cara also hoped to be able to again wear shoes that she could no longer fit into due to her bunion. “Having a bunion weighs on you, fashion-wise, because you struggle with the limited shoes you can wear,” she says. In fact, she has a special pair of shoes she has been looking forward to wearing after she recovers from surgery.

Cara had her right foot corrected with the Lapiplasty® Procedure in August 2019 and was in a walking boot the very next week. Just six weeks after surgery, Cara is now wearing sneakers and enjoying walks to the park with her children. She’s able to take them to school and all of their activities. While she’s still recovering, she’s back to exercising at home and is happy to be “getting back to what I was doing before surgery.”

“I am healing pretty quickly. And everyone is surprised I am out of the boot this fast and back into comfortable shoe wear.” Thrilled with her results, Cara’s advice to anyone interested in having the Lapiplasty® Procedure to correct their bunion is “Don’t wait. Make time to do it. You’re actually up and at ‘em pretty quickly.”

1. Jeuken RM, et al. Foot Ankle Int. 2016. 37:687-95.
2. Ray J, et al. Foot Ankle Int. 2019 Aug;40(8):955-960.

Only a surgeon can tell if Lapiplasty® 3D Bunion Correction^™ is right for you. As with any medical treatment, individual results may vary and this experience is unique and specific to this patient only. There are potential risks with surgery and recovery takes time. Potential risks include, but are not limited to: infection, discomfort from the presence of the implant, loosening of the implant, and loss of correction with nonunion or malunion.