Anastasia’s Story: Getting Back to Life

Since the age of 10, Anas­ta­sia Woods can remem­ber always strug­gling with her feet. Going to the store to pick out a pair of shoes was nev­er a fun out­ing, it was a dread­ed one.

“I always wore shoes that were two sizes too big and I always kind of had to pick out ​‘man’ shoes because shoes that were my size and cute were either too tight or uncom­fort­able. If I did pick a shoe it would be too small of a shoe; I just wouldn’t end up wear­ing them,” she said.

Woods suf­fered from bunions on both feet. A bunion is a bony bump that forms on the joint where your big toe meets your foot — called the metatar­sopha­langeal (MTP) joint. It hap­pens slow­ly over time, and even­tu­al­ly gets big­ger and sticks out.

In 2020, her bunion pain had got­ten so extreme that it affect­ed every aspect of her life, includ­ing her pas­sion for exer­cise. When she final­ly sought help, she was no longer able to wear shoes. She had a bunionec­to­my per­formed on both feet, but the pro­ce­dure wasn’t effective.

“I couldn’t leave my house for two months. I got very depressed. I couldn’t do any­thing, and if I want­ed any­thing peo­ple had to take me to get it done,” she shared.

After a year with no relief, she turned to Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) and QMG Podi­a­trist Shwe­tal Patel, DPM, for help.

“I took it upon myself to find Dr. Patel because I knew it need­ed to be cor­rect­ed,” she shared. ​“Bunions are hered­i­tary, so those close to me told me I need­ed to get a sec­ond opinion.”

Dr. Patel rec­og­nized the sever­i­ty of Woods’ con­di­tion and rec­om­mend­ed Lapi­plas­ty^® 3D Bunion Cor­rec­tion. Lapi­plas­ty does more than sim­ply remove ​“the bump”; it address­es a patient’s bunion in three dimen­sions to cor­rect the root of the problem.

She was hes­i­tant at first because of her pri­or expe­ri­ence, but Woods was ready to get her life back and be active once again. Dr. Patel per­formed Lapi­plas­ty on her feet in Decem­ber of 2021 and the out­come was a suc­cess. So suc­cess­ful, in fact, that she couldn’t hide her emo­tions at her next vis­it with Dr. Patel.

“He made me cry actu­al­ly. I could wear shoes. I could do my dai­ly life. I just cried and hugged him. I bawled because I was just so hap­py that he fixed it,” she shared. ​“Every time I go in there, I’m just so excit­ed that he fixed me.”

For more infor­ma­tion on Lapi­plas­t­ly at QMG, click here.