OPRAH WINFREY is facing a stomach-churning dilemma:get nightmarish surgery to fix her deformed fet-or risk becoming crippled.

The 56-year-old talk queen doesn’t want to be confined to a wheelchair,but experts say the operation involves weeks of grueling recovery and requires dramatic weight loss-but she’s vowed never to diet again!

“Oprah’s caught in a Catch-22 regarding her health and future!”a source tells GLOBE.”Her face are so bad,it looks like she has a sixth toe!” “She can barely walk,and is in constant pain.She MUST have surgery to keep from being permanently crippled.” And,the souce says the gab guru could already be facing future hip and knee replacements due to being overweight for so long

Currently,Oprah is tipping the scales at about 210 pounds,but since 1988 she’s yo-yoed from a svelte 130 pounds to a whopping 275 pounds,say sources. After 20 years of failing to permanently slim down despite trying “every weight loss plan known to man,”the insider says,”she’s just decided to accept she’s never going to weight 150 or even 160 pounds.” “But that goes against what her docs have told her.” Oprah has been warned every extra pound she carries adds more debilitating stress to her feet,knees and hips-and her age also increases the chance of developing bonedepleting osteoporosis.

“All in all,Oprah is facing a medical nightmare,”says the insider.”If she doesn’t find a way to lose weight and keep it off,she could end up in a wheelchair!” Oprah even admitted on a 2008 episode of her show she’s been “living in pain almost every single day for 21 years” because of her feet.But she still hasn’t gone under the knife to correct the problems,say sources.

She suffers from agonizing bunions,hammertoes and fallen arches,mostly brought on by her insistence on wearing fashionable,but highly impractical high-heeled shoes-which cause an unnatural walk. “This abnormal gait is overloading her knees and they will deteriorate faster,”Dr. Bal Raj of Beverly Hills tells GLOBE.”Eventually she’ll need surgery to repair or replace her knees and possibly her hips.If she doesn’t,she’ll end up in a wheelchair or using a cane. “Surgery to correct her feet needs to be done but it is extremely painful and she’ll need months to recover.And she needs to lose weight to save her joints.”

Chicago orthopedic surgeon Dr.Richard Berger says it’s too late for Oprah to avoid pain and suffering.”She needs surgery.”he says.

-JIM NELSON and LYNN ALLISON

The doctor in the story have not examined Oprah.