I know this response is a few months late.
Unfortunately, surgeon’s opinions are just that - opinions. It’s hard for patients to discern which opinion makes the most sense with respect to the logic from which the opinion is derived. Sometimes an surgeons’ opinion merely reflects the doctors’ willingness to perform the procedure, regardless of whether it makes sense to do it, in my opinion.
To illustrate:
I was avoiding a TKR on a long-ailing (3+ decades with bad lateral meniscus) right knee. My left knee started acting up a two years back, but really only had some minor patellar cartilage erosion compared with the right one. The main problem with the left knee was that it was taking a lot of the load from my bad right knee. One orthopod I consulted wanted to totally replace the left knee, and partially replace the right. But this one said that he wouldn’t replace the left one until I had a syndesmosis rupture on my left ankle fixed - this was from an equally old ankle eversion.
It turns out that the second opinion I got completely disagreed with the first, on two counts:
First, the second orthopod said that good practice usually demands to fix proximal issues before distal issues - that if I had my tibia end screwed into my fibula to fix the ankle syndesmosis before I replaced my left knee, the ankle syndesmosis repair would be stressed by the change in loading that came from replacing the left knee. He said If it were sensible to replace the left knee, that should be done before repair of the ankle. My ankle surgeon (who repaired my torn achilles) concurred with this analysis.
Second, my left knee would not even be a replacement candidate until I surgically addressed the right knee, since that was a much more compromised joint (no lateral meniscus at all). Once I get the right knee replaced and properly/carefully strengthen both knees, my left knee may simply stop being painful. After all, the left started to give pain only two years ago, the right has been painful for decades, so it made sense that as the right knee became more painful, the left would suffer from “offloading” stresses. Once relieved of this offloading and distortion of muscle loading, the left may simply become quiescent.
So I went with the second surgeon and replaced my right knee. It’s only six weeks since the TKR, and I’m over the largest part of the pain. Hoo - that is major surgery! I have been given leave for another six weeks off work, since my right quadriceps group still is regaining proprioception and full engagement. For three or four weeks after TKR, my right quad would simple ripple like jelly when I tried to do extensions. Since I've biked all my life and not much else, my quads were overdeveloped w.r.t everything else on me!
Anyway from all the above, OP, if it were me, I would be hesitant to do anything to my tibia until I figured out clearly what is going on above, in the knee.