What is it ?

There is not enough blood getting down your leg to keep the foot and toes alive. The lack of blood causes severe pain and allows serious infection to take hold. The only choice is to cut off the damaged part. This must be done high enough to get proper healing of the stump. In your case it means an amputation just below your knee. Sometimes the amputation is needed because of a serious injury to the limb.

The Operation in India: Knee Amputation in India

You will have a general anaesthetic and be asleep or sometimes just an injection to numb you below the waist. If the latter takes place, you will be awake but you will not feel any pain from the waist down. A cut is made so that, after removing the diseased part, you end up with a rounded stump made of healthy skin. You should plan to be in the hospital for a month to cover any delay in healing of the wound. You may well be out before this. You may need alterations to your home, such as bath handles, and ramps, which will help you when you return. You will need to have a temporary wheelchair and learn how to use it.

If you leave things as they are, your leg will certainly get worse. Life threatening infection may start. An operation to bypass or core out your leg arteries will not work in your case. Laser treatment and X-ray guided stretching of the arteries will not work for you. Injecting the nerve to your blood vessels will not work. Antibiotics are not enough by themselves. An alternative to a below-knee operation is one higher up, such as through the knee, or at the mid-thigh level. But the higher the level, the greater the risks of the operation, and the smaller the chances of you walking again. A lower amputation such as through your toe or foot will not heal.

Below-Knee Amputation vs. Above-Knee Amputation

Knee amputations can either be below knee amputations or above knee amputations. Let’s look at these closely : –

• Above-knee amputation : – An above-knee amputation is most often performed for advanced soft-tissue sarcomas of the distal thigh and leg, or for primary bone sarcomas of the distal femur and proximal tibia. An above the knee amputation can go right up to the hip, and is therefore more complicated and time consuming, as compared to the below knee amputations. Above-knee amputations performed for tumors of the distal femur or sarcomas of the distal thigh tend to be performed at a higher level than the standard above-knee amputations. By contrast, tumors of the leg are treated with the standard above-knee amputation. In this operation, the bone in the thigh (femur) is divided about 12-15 centimeters above the knee joint and the muscle and skin closed over the end of the bone.

• Below-knee amputations : – Below-knee amputations can involve everything from amputation of a single toe or the complete leg below the knee. This type of amputation is administered for people with critical limb ischaemia, (a lack of blood supply) caused by advanced vascular disease or diabetic foot infection. Keeping the knee joint, gives a better chance of walking using an artificial leg or prosthesis and social independence after the amputation. This operation can be performed using 2 major techniques – skew flap and posterior flap. It is easier to perform, less complicated and the recovery is faster.