Miles jumped a fence in 2009 and lost his leg below the knee. After years of socket problems, he traveled to Sydney for osseointegration surgery with specialist Munjid, which let him ditch the prosthetic socket entirely. Now he's planning revision surgery to fix nerve pain and soft-tissue issues so he can fully return to walking and outdoor activities.
Back in 2009, I was running and I made the very— turned out stupid decision to jump over a small fence, and when I landed, I skidded, hyperextended my leg, and did all manner of damage to the knee and ligaments and all around it. And basically the damage was so severe that after a week or so the hospital decided it would be in my best interest to amputate and go forward with a prosthetic rather than try and sort of save what was, what would have been left. In 2016, I've been having some issues with my sort of the socket that I've been wearing wasn't fitting well. I was getting all manner of sores and so forth. I was also getting bone spurs growing, which was causing discomfort. At the time, all my prosthetics were done by Dorset Orthopaedic, and they'd started to have some sort of contact with Munjid in Sydney. And so basically they put me in touch with Munjid, and I talked to him and then talked to a couple other people who'd had the osseointegration done, and It wasn't available in the UK back then, so a couple of months after I've talked to him, I got on a flight and flew out to Sydney and had the one-stage procedure done then. In effect, what's happened is because I no longer have to use a socket, the muscles that are used are slightly different, and so the flesh and muscle around where the abutment comes through has kind of got a bit out of shape. It's fallen down and that's caused issues with obviously folds in the skin and it's just needed clearing up to make sure there's no infection. I've also got a large neuroma around the back of— it's almost at the bottom of the stump, so they're gonna sort that out, do a little bit of work on the bone while they're in there, and then Yeah, just do the PDR procedure so that hopefully that will reduce my nerve pain and phantom pain sensations. I had a couple of visits up here and consultancies, also one down in Dorset, just to check that it would be in my best interest and there wouldn't be any sort of effects in terms of the implant and the prosthetics that I use. And once that was all sorted out, but it wouldn't have any impact, and it was obviously going to be a big health benefit to as well as just looking and feeling better. Compared with the levels of support which I needed before, it's a lot less because the whole Osseo integration thing, I feel, gives you a lot more freedom, and it certainly helped me in my ability to do more. It's just a question of being able to get back and doing what I had been doing and keep on pushing I suppose the how far I can walk and do all the other bits that I was doing until the sort of the issues with sensitivity and soreness and pain at the end of the stump started to impact on me. So it is to get back outdoors, walk my dogs, do all the things that I like to do and just, yeah, and just try and be in a position to do as much as I can again.
