return to work · last reviewed 2026-08-09
Return to work after Lisfranc surgery
Clinical procedure: Lisfranc injury surgery (fixation or fusion).
Typical, evidence-anchored estimate only. It is not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.
Every number on this page comes from a published study of real patients and links to its source. Return-to-work timing varies widely with the kind of job, the cohort studied, and the person — treat the figures as orientation, not clearance.
When you actually return is a decision made with your surgeon and, where relevant, occupational health. The data below describes cohorts, not your case.
what the studies document
Back to work
Return to work or play averages fourteen weeks
In the same series of 15 people, the average time to return to work or play as tolerated was 14.1 weeks, with a spread of about 3.6 weeks either side. That places the middle of the range at roughly three and a half months, and the wider range from about ten weeks to eighteen.
Back to work
The harder injury returned to work sooner, not later
In a prospective study of 32 people, all 21 with high-energy injuries had resumed their pre-injury work by six months, while 3 of the 11 with low-energy injuries had not. Pain at six months told a similar story: the high-energy group fell from 8 to 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, the low-energy group from 6 to 3. Severity at the moment of injury does not settle where you finish.
Back to work
Four in five service members stay on duty
In a group of 70 active-duty service members who had surgery for a Lisfranc injury, 80 percent remained on duty or completed their service by a mean follow-up of three and a half years, and 20 percent were medically separated because of the injury. About 69 percent had returned to the daily running their job required.
milestones from the timeline
- wk 17 ·Return to play or duty (athletes and service members) (Mean 116 days missed after operative treatment (about 17 weeks) versus 58 days non-operative; pooled return rate 86.16% across 441 people)
sources
What this page is built from
- Pain and midfoot function after joint-sparing suture-tape augmented Lisfranc fixation (n=58, mean 16.9-month follow-up) retrospective case series · reliability 6/10
- Primary arthrodesis versus open reduction internal fixation for acute Lisfranc injuries: systematic review and meta-analysis (18 studies) meta-analysis · reliability 9/10
- Primary arthrodesis versus ORIF for Lisfranc injuries: meta-analysis of 5 randomized trials (241 patients) meta-analysis · reliability 9/10
- Return to play after low-energy Lisfranc injury: systematic review and meta-analysis (441 athletes and active-duty personnel) meta-analysis · reliability 8/10
- Flexible fixation versus ORIF versus primary arthrodesis for ligamentous Lisfranc injuries: meta-analysis (25 studies) meta-analysis · reliability 8/10
- Do Lisfranc ORIFs fail? Long-term conversion to arthrodesis in 8,101 patients at 5 and 10 years retrospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Hardware removal after Lisfranc ORIF: timing and patient-reported outcomes (482 patients, 489 feet) retrospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Primary arthrodesis versus ORIF for Lisfranc injuries: comparative cohort with rehabilitation protocol (73 patients) retrospective cohort · reliability 7/10
- Ligamentous Lisfranc injuries: hardware removal timing and rate (39 feet, stage II) retrospective case series · reliability 6/10
- Outcomes of Lisfranc injuries in active-duty service members (n=70, mean 3.5-year follow-up) retrospective case series · reliability 6/10
- Ly and Coetzee: treatment of primarily ligamentous Lisfranc joint injuries, primary arthrodesis versus ORIF (randomized, n=41) randomized trial · reliability 8/10
- Henning et al.: open reduction internal fixation versus primary arthrodesis for Lisfranc fracture-dislocations (randomized, n=40) randomized trial · reliability 8/10
- Early outcomes of Lisfranc injuries treated with a suture-button internal brace (case series, n=15) case series · reliability 6/10
- High- and low-energy Lisfranc injuries: prospective functional outcomes and return to work at 6 months (n=32) prospective case series · reliability 6/10
- Lisfranc sports injuries: review of return-to-training and return-to-competition windows narrative review · reliability 6/10
- Postoperative complications of percutaneous versus open treatment of Lisfranc injuries (matched, 1,100 per cohort) retrospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Functional outcomes of open reduction and internal fixation for Lisfranc injuries (n=87, mean 4.9-yr follow-up) retrospective case series · reliability 6/10
- Mid- and long-term consequences after surgically treated Lisfranc injuries (14 followed, mean 8.3 yr) case series · reliability 6/10
- Week-by-week postoperative protocol after Lisfranc fixation in athletes (case series, 10 followed) case series · reliability 6/10
Track your own week-by-week so a flare doesn't erase the months behind it.
Start a recovery logThis page reflects published cohort data on lisfranc surgery recovery — not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.