Defective titanium toe joint implant

I’m still having lots of foot pain and swelling when I walk, so I asked my regular doctor if I could get a second opinion from a new podiatrist (I still like my old podiatrist, but a fresh perspective is always good) about the foot and she said yes, but I should be aware that feet are difficult so I shouldn’t expect too much. So my foot appointment was today and I had some new x-rays taken and then meet with the new podiatrist. Guess what he found? My titanium toe joint implant is defective/malfunctioned and I only had it for two years. TWO YEARS! Looking at old photos from this time last year (aka May 2016) show none of the damage we are now seeing. So it all happened sometime in the past year. Fantastic. The foot will never get better. The pain and swelling will never go away. So my new options are 1) do nothing and live with the pain, 2) get a new implant and try again, but its going to have to be bigger due to the damage of the last one and it has less of a chance to succeed, and 3) fusing the toe together. Fusion is a last ditch effort and it was something we hoped to avoid during the past two surgery’s. But that’s what we are going to have to do now. You can see the damage in the photos. Notice all the dark space around the implant, which is being caused by the implant shimmying and destroying the bone around the implant as I walk. Also notice the little shark fin bone spur which has now grown over the implant. So surgery this summer, which will be #3 in the past 5 years for those that are counting. Bipedalism sucks!