I’ve already briefly discussed my experience with Dr. Antero, but below is a more in-depth account of my horrific experience with that quack.
Before I met Dr. Antero, my foot was almost perfectly fine. SOMETIMES, I had a very minor pain on the top of my foot when I ran. Because I do HIIT (high-intensity interval training), and I box and wrestle, I wanted my foot to be as close to perfect as possible, so I decided to get surgery to correct a minor problem. I couldn’t have guessed that Dr. Antero would botch what should have been a routine foot procedure. I walked into her office with a minor foot problem that most people wouldn’t notice (because most people don’t do the kind of exercising that I do). I left her office with a foot problem that made it impossible for me to live the life that I had previously lived.
Due to Dr. Antero’s quackery, I had to go through several months of wondering if I would ever be able to take a walk around the block again without wearing inserts in my shoes (forget about running, boxing, or wrestling).
The first mistake — of many — that Dr. Antero made was not informing me that a minimally-invasive procedure existed to fix my problem. By her own admission, Dr. Antero didn’t tell me that my issue could be fixed with a minimally-invasive procedure because she didn’t know how to perform such a procedure. In other words, Dr. Antero prioritized her financial interests ahead of my well-being.
Had I known that a minimally-invasive procedure could have fixed my problem, I would have opted for that, but because Dr. Antero never told me about its existence, she performed a more invasive surgical procedure on me — a surgery that Dr. Antero was evidently not competent to perform.
Dr. Antero excessively shortened one of the bones in my foot, and she improperly placed the bone into its joint. As a result, I lost almost all plantarflex (downward) range of motion, and my big toe didn’t even touch the ground! Because my big toe no longer touched the ground, my other four toes had to carry the load for my big toe, so I had bad pain in the ball of my foot, and I was unable to walk around the block without wearing an insert in my shoe. Dr. Antero’s post-op care was so bad that she didn’t even notice that my big toe wasn’t touching the ground!
During the post-op period, I often told Dr. Antero that I was concerned about my surgery, and that I thought I had complications. Dr. Antero resorted to lying, gaslighting, and manipulation. In spite of my foot being MUCH worse off after surgery than it had been before surgery, Dr. Antero told me that my surgery went well, and that other people’s bones were shortened more than mine, that other people had worse range of motion than I had, and that her range of motion was worse than mine (I’m not sure what her range of motion had to do with anything, nor do I think that the other people she mentioned even existed, but she was desperate to convince me that her botched surgery was a success). Dr. Antero made me feel like I was being unreasonable for wanting a functioning foot, since other people were apparently happy with a surgical outcome that was significantly worse than the original condition.
Dr. Antero seemingly expected me to say to myself, “well, I’ve suddenly lost my mobility at a young age, no longer able to participate in the high-demand athletics that I had been passionate about before surgery, but since other people had even worse surgical outcomes, I suppose I should be happy with my life being turned upside down. Thanks, Dr. Antero!” She even jokingly said, because I was so worried about my foot, that I needed to be on anti-anxiety medication! So because I was upset that Dr. Antero’s surgery made it impossible for me to live the life that I previously lived, she apparently thought that anti-anxiety medication — not getting my foot fixed — was the answer.
Finally, after 3 months, Dr. Antero acknowledged what I had known for two months — that I needed a revision surgery. While I’m sure that wishful thinking was part of the reason Dr. Antero failed to recognize that I needed a revision surgery, the main culprit was her incompetence. Dr. Antero was so incompetent that she had me coming in to her office every other day to get laser treatment, when the problems were that my bone was excessively shortened, and my bone wasn’t properly placed into its joint. Lasers can’t lengthen bones, nor can they move bones.
Luckily, I have finally gotten out from under Dr. Antero’s “care,” and I recently had multiple revision surgeries to correct Dr. Antero’s work. When it’s all said and done, I should be mostly healed a year after my first revision surgery, but I’ll still have a lot of physical therapy to do, and this whole ordeal will end up lasting around two years.
[UPDATE #1: Because of Dr. Antero’s quackery, I had to have a 3rd surgery. Read about my 3rd surgery — and why it’s completely Dr. Quacktero’s fault that a 3rd surgery was necessary — here.]
[UPDATE #2: Dr. Antero’s quackery was so bad, that I required a 4th surgery to fix what she did! Read about my 4th surgery here.]
All in all, I’m hopeful that my foot will be mostly repaired; however, my foot will never be as good as it was before I had surgery to fix the original condition. Dr. Antero is such a quack, that after three revision surgeries, my foot will only be mostly repaired.
Dr. Antero is a quack, and I strongly urge you to not let her anywhere near your feet!