My orthosis, 10 weeks later
The first fitting for my ankle-foot orthosis was in late September 2014, here is the post.
Instep of my orthosis
Now its mid December. As we all know receiving something is one thing but only too often further work is necessary. This proved to be no exception. I was so pleased when I first started using it, walking was so much easier, my balance was better because the stability of the ankle. I now felt like a new man.
Back to the wobbly walking
After wearing the orthosis for 5 hours there was an intense pain in the sole of my left foot. Try as I might it could not be ignored. It felt as if I was walking over cobbles on the beach.The only relief was to take the wretched thing off. Was it no good? Was the unsteady balance and wobbly gait going to return? Something needed to be done to the orthosis. I made another appointment to see the specialist at Amersham. He said that the problem is because I have feet with high arches, it needed some more work doing to it. Oh dear back to the wobbly walking.
Back to the factory
When wearing the orthosis my foot is on a flat strip of hard plastic and the sole of my foot is not flat. My wet foot-prints show 7 separate blobs, 5 toes, the ball of my foot and then the heel. I have a very high instep so the orthosis needed to be modified to give my foot some extra support. It had to go back to the factory.
Buy another new pair of shoes
Three weeks later my orthosis comes back and I collect it, Just a couple of bits of rubber had been glued on to the sole to give the sole of my foot some extra support. Already I had had my left shoe stretched and the insole of the shoe taken out but now I couldn’t put the shoe on. This meant buying another pair of shoes but these being a couple of sizes bigger.
100 quid bites the dust
So I went down to the shoe shop, Guess what? They did not have exactly the same shoe that was two sizes bigger. They had them in black but not in brown. First of all they had to check that the shoes were available and then order them. The following week I went to collect them, another 100 quid bites the dust.
Thank you NHS
The whole process from suggesting I ought to have an orthosis fitted to buying new shoes to fit must have been in the region of 20 weeks. If I were to have gone privately it would have cost some thing in the region of £600. From returning the orthosis to buying the new shoes must have been five weeks.I have now been using the orthosis every day for 5 days and I can now wear it for about 12 hours before the sole of my foot starts to hurt. My walking is more stable. I feel happier and more confident. Thank you NHS
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