How to move when you can't walk?
Many patients that come to
the office have a period of time where they’re not supposed to walk on their
foot. This may be due to a sore on the
bottom of your foot, heel pain, having surgery, or having another foot condition
that you’re not able to put pressure on either the right or the left foot. The
first thing to consider is that if it’s your right foot, you’re not going to be
able to drive either, so you have to make arrangements for rides to your
doctors’ visits; for example, if you have a bunion surgery on your right foot
and you can’t put pressure on the foot.
But the main reason that people can’t walk or put pressure on their foot
isn’t usually surgery. It may be surgery,
but most of the time it’s due to a foot sore or a foot ulcer. These ulcers are caused by pressure, and if
you have one of them and you have a condition called neuropathy that you can’t
feel the bottom of your foot, and then you have to find another way of keeping
the pressure off of the bottom of the foot.
So the question is how do you move when you can’t walk? I’ll give you a few options. One of the
options that works well for a lot of patients is called a knee walker. What this is, is kind of a like a scooter
that has a place where you can put your knee on there, either the right and
left knee, and it has a steering wheel that can guide you around wherever you
need to go. This is a very good device, especially if you need to be for an
extended period, for example six weeks or longer, without putting pressure on
your foot. You can wheel around, you can
continue to do work and do your activity.
Another option to get around is called the Freedom Leg. This is a device
that actually straps onto your leg and puts all the pressure through your thigh
and doesn’t put pressure on the foot. So
this can allow you to walk somewhat normally by putting the pressure forces
through the area of the leg and the thigh.
So these are a couple of options that you can use to help not put
pressure on your foot when you’re allowing something to be healed.
To Your Health,
Dr. Donald Pelto
