Spasticity and Splints (Part 5)

Eventually, I got plastered. When I got plastered for the old splints, I remember having two casts taken for each leg; one set of casts was for the full-length splints, and the other ones were just casts of my feet. This time, he only took one cast of each leg. He said that they would make the inserts from the original casts.

I didn’t want to speak too soon, but I was quite optimistic that I would get what I needed this time. I know that I said that last time, but we’d just have to wait and see. Luckily, the casting went well.

I went to collect my new splints on 23 April, and I was nervous about the appointment because of previous experiences, but it went really well. I tried my new splints, and they were so comfortable. I wore them all the way home in the car journey, which is about an hour.

The moment of truth was when I used my walking frame. I was given two elasticated straps to put around my toes if I needed. Unlike my old splints, there was no strap over the top of my feet, and the inner splints are made from a different material altogether, and they’re not rigid like my old ones; it’s a flexible, rubbery material. This caused two issues: The first one was putting them on. The material makes it difficult to slide the small foot splint into the full AFO. The

second problem was the first time I used them on 24 April, it felt like my feet weren’t totally secure and they were moving around in the splints because of the flexibility of the splints, so we added the straps they gave me to the middle of the splints. This worked to a certain extent, so I tried it out for a few days…