I cannot really comment about ankles as I broke my shoulder and had a plate and 11 screws put in.

Just wanted to say depending on how serious the break is (mine was the ball of the joint shattering into 11 large and lots of small pieces) sometimes the joint is never going to be the same. I cannot put my arm over my head anymore as the ball hasn't healed smooth. That is just the way it is. So sometimes you will have to accept some loss. I think if this accident happened 50 years agao I suspect I would of lost my arm.

I am not having the hardware out as I have had two operations of the shoulder already.