Talar Dome Lesion
Hi y'all. Looking for thoughts and insight. About 10 years ago I severely sprained my right ankle and needed a surgical repair. During that MRI it was revealed that I have had a long standing talar dome lesion in the same foot. They asked if I had inner ankle pain on that foot and my initial reaction was that I didn't. I later connected the dots that I have from the time I was a child, but it wasn't persistent. There were times in gymnastics when I was 9-10 where I would tweak my ankle and could barely walk on it and told people that I thought I broke my ankle, and the pain would go away after a few hours to a day or two.
As an adult, I notice that when I exercise consistently for more than a week or two, even doing low impact activities like yoga, I will eventually get the same pain inside of my ankle. It's much worse than it used to be, lasting at least 3-5 days and making it almost impossible to walk longer distances than across the house. My inner ankle swells when it starts to hurt but cracks while walking pretty regularly. Once in a while my ankle also locks and it's extremely painful to unlock it and move it. My outer ankle where I had the sprain repair is fine, it's just my inner ankle. I'm also very flat-footed so that doesn't help, but I've tried custom orthotics and they almost seem to make this worse.
Does this sound like impacts from the talar dome lesion or something else? I'm planning on seeing a podiatrist about it but does anyone have any pain management techniques in the meantime especially since I've been working out more frequently (mostly elliptical and inclined treadmill)? Since it seems to be such an old injury, what are the chances I'll need surgery on it? What does the recovery from that surgery look like?
Thanks for any help or insight that y'all have! Feeling hopeless but I think it's time to stop ignoring it and hoping it will go away.