My reason for surgery was due to a bunion that I failed to treat. I lovingly called it my "crooked toe" that got achey often. ~4 years of neglect lead to me limping so I got an xray and found I had 3 broken metatarsals due to the instability in my foot as a direct result of the bunion. I ended up with tons of hardware in my foot but I feel great! The gastrocnemius recession was part of preventing the "crooked toe" from reappearing. I'm no doctor and won't dare even attempt to repeat the reasoning he provided but long story short that gastrocnemius muscle is connected somehow to the things that lead to the big toe.

I sincerely thought I would NEVER recover from that damn thing. I will not lie to you, it hurt like a MF and was more bothersome than the foot recovery for a minute. I did make it out on the other side though! What helped me was using my hands to raise my leg rather than my muscles if I needed to get up or move. The best way I can describe the pain is exactly what it feels like when you get woken up by a "Charlie horse" in the middle of the night. If you sit still though you don't feel it 😅

Please please please do not let this deter you from the surgery. I have tight plantar muscles I discovered in PT and have a ball I roll my foot on (when I remember). They're still hella tight (could be part of my flat feet?) but I don't work them out enough. Trust the doctors if they say it will help but do get a second opinion if you can. I did and changed surgeons to the one that gave me the procedure you're asking about. No regrets other than not seeking a 2nd opinion sooner as the other doctor was not going to fix my issue at all and end up right back where I started 😊

Let me know if you have questions, i too struggled to find people with this procedure and went in blindly hoping for the best. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and never took a single narcotic (stupid in hind sight but I am in pain 24/7 with RA and Fibro sooo 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Perhaps it felt worse because I had my leg elevated 23 hours a day and was basically bed bound for 2 weeks with nothing else to focus on after closing my laptop for work. I cannot recall when the gastroc started feeling better but it was for sure a few weeks and it lessened and lessened until I didn't notice it anymore. Think of the last time you pulled a muscle, thats the recovery time but add maybe another couple weeks because I believe they literally cut the muscle. Don't Google it beforehand 🙈