I’ve been having problems with my artificial foot for a few months now – whenever I’ve been walking around, it’s been making loud squeaking noises – sounds like squeaky shoes cross with a squeaky floorboard. I thought it might have been to do with the foot enclosure, but when that got changed over, the problem persisted. I had to drop by my specialist’s rooms on Monday to get a new silicone liner for my stump, and while I was there he had a look at it – we thought it might have been the spectra sock (the sock that goes over the artificial foot mechanism, which in turn goes into the foot enclosure – protects the actual foot mechanism from damage), so we plonked another one over the old one after the existing one didn’t show any wear-through. Problem persisted, and so we took off both, and put only the new sock on – worked a treat!
Turns out the problem was that that fine amount of carbon fibre that had gradually rubbed off the base of the foot and into the spectra sock had caused a ‘sheen’ to form on the sock, and it was the rubbing of this synthetic sheen against the base of the foot that was causing the problem. So yes, no squeaky foot any more, which makes me happy 🙂
For those interested, the following are what a spectra sock and what my foot looks like/similar to:
Click for more info, or check out the ‘Leg stuff’ gallery, it’s all in there. Both products are from Ossur, and their prosthesis section on their website is here if you want to find out more info on either of those pictured above. I’m not sure if my gear is actually Ossur stuff, but it looks similar 😛 At least, as far as those pictures go anyways 🙂
Bloginated Friday, 22nd May 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: carbon fibre | Ossur | prosthesis | prosthetic foot | spectra sock
Because I’m a very clever soul, I’ve managed to split the foot of my prosthesis:
That’s a shot showing where it’s breaking off. Generally, this is caused by too much impact work when it comes to my kicks – on the previous style of foot I had, it would typically break along the top of the fake toes, which generally wouldn’t bother me too much as I’d still be able to walk around. Given how this one’s split though, I’m inclined to lean on the side of caution as I’m keen to avoid breaking the ends off. Doing so would probably make walking around a bit awkward/dangerous with the whole falling down thing. On the other hand, it would also ensure hilarity as I randomly fell over. In my demented brain, such occasions would be accompanied by some kind of silly gag music, and possibly canned laughter. I often wonder about my sanity in reviewing the many numerous dangers that arises from the combination of my attitude and my condition 😛
Needless to say, I’m writing this blog instead of training. I feel like a bit of an idiot, but I want to be able to do the whole walking thing between now and next Thursday, which is when I go in to get it fixed, so there you go. Also, my thumb I mangled last week is still healing up and is swollen. With ice-burns because I keep insisting on putting ice on it each night to speed up the healing process. This is also a wussy complaint, but I thought I’d share anyhows 😛 It also means that I have an excuse to use one of my favourite tags, “stupid injuries” 🙂
For those interested, I’ve added a few pics to the ‘Leg Stuff’ gallery, so feel free to have a look – just various shots of the mangled foot. I still have the old College Park Tribute foot I severely mangled lying around the place – might throw some pictures up of that later on to add to the gallery.
I’m a bit behind on what’s been happening among some of the regular MA blogs I read up on at the moment, so expect some more insightful-ish blogs in due course once I’ve caught up. I find that if I have ideas floating around in my head on what I want to write about, reading other people’s blogs has a habit of giving me a kick up the arse to actually write down my thoughts!!
Bloginated Wednesday, 8th April 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: prosthesis | prosthetic foot | stupid injuries
