Today we're going to talk about Cheilectomy. Cheilectomy is a surgery that's done for arthritis of the great toe joint. What happens is people develop arthritic spurs from mechanical jamming of this joint --they get wear and tear of the joint. The cartilage becomes more narrow and damaged, and they get large painful arthritic spurs on top of the joint. The joint becomes quite stiff. It becomes enlarged and it becomes painful. Once someone has this, they may have orthotics, they may have had injections, but at some point, a lot of people have surgery. The goal of surgery is to clean up the spurs and remove the enlargement of the joint. When we do the surgery, we make an incision over the top of the joint, and we go down on the capsule, which strengthens the joint. Once we have access to the joint, we can inspect the joint and look at the cartilage. Once we've cleaned out the joint and exposed it, we take a saw and remove the spurs. We also remove the top portion of the joint to improve the gliden of the joint. Once the surgery is done, patients are usually put into a cast boot. For this procedure, we use local anesthetic. If you would like to make an appointment, please call us at 425-391-8666.