Hi Dr. Rozbruch,
Congratulations on being the keynote speaker at the AOFAS.
I wanted to give you an update on my ankle. It’s been 3 years since the distraction surgery and I have never felt so great.

I’ve also recently hired a trainer who tailor fit my workouts to fit my injuries and limitations – so I dropped about 45 lbs in the last year (currently at 13.4% body fat) which made things even better. My target is to reach 8% during summer and swing back to 14% in winter – and in between keep it in that range of 8 – 14% fat.

I’ve also been taking Stemcell WorX, Glucosamine, Vitamin D, among other multi vitamins once a day as supplements. It seems to help. I don’t take any pain killers for my ankle unless I’m going to be golfing or I know I’ll be going for a challenging hike, but I can hike up and down mountains.

Dr. Rozbruch, what you do with ankle distraction arthroplasty is revolutionary and I hope this becomes the mainstream procedure for any type of ankle arthritis in the future throughout the world. You have changed my life.

When I come to NYC next, I’d love to see you and find out how I’m doing from your point of view.

In the meantime, here are some before and after stats that may interest you:

Before: Maximum distance I could walk 0.75 miles – then I have to rest a while or get a ride.
After: Maximum distance 12 miles in one day (measured with FitBit). I still haven’t maxed out to the point where I was like, okay this is the end. Usually the pain is not in the ankle but rather in the knee or hips possibly due to the disparate range of motion.

Before: It was impossible for me to run
After: I can do some light jogging – it hurts a bit after one mile so I don’t really actually run regularly but I just wanted to try it and I ran over a mile one day to my barber and felt awesome.

Before: I had to take narcotic pain killers, motrin and meloxicam on a regular basis
After: I have tapered off from all pain meds. I still take it in special circumstances “just in case” e.g. for hikes, golf or Christmas shopping

Before: If I got sore after high impact activity, I would stay sore for days at a time, sometimes a business week (5 days)
After: If I get sore, I usually get better within 24 hours, maximum 36 hours.

Before: My balance was horrible and I was extremely unstable on my right leg
After: (this includes thanks to my personal training of course) much stronger and more balanced, with great stability and core strength.

Before: No way I could jump to any height or from steps
After: I can do small plyometric jump workouts although, in some cases, it does exacerbate the ankle for a couple of days if I get too ambitious.

Let me know what your thoughts are of if you have any questions.

Thank you sir.

Sincerely,