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- Howdy, folks, and welcome back to You Got This!
I'm Garrett, and today we're going to talk about feet.
But before I get too carried away,
I wanna say if I'm wearing the same shirt
in the next few episodes,
it's not because I always wear the same shirt.
I'm gonna shoot a handful of episodes today
and release them out over the next month.
So, with that said, let's dive into feet.
One of the,
there's so many layers to feet.
You're gonna ask your prosthetist about it,
and you don't need to know everything about the feet,
but you wanna know the questions to ask
and how to prioritize things.
Ideally, most really good prosthetists
will help you select feet by ordering several,
so you can try several out when you first go,
and then you choose one,
and usually you've got a good 30, 60, 90 days
to try out the foot,
and if you really hate it,
you can always send it back
and get a different one.
You're never really totally locked in
until you've committed,
and you're past that point.
Most feet come with about a three-year warranty,
sometimes two,
and insurance usually starts to consider,
that's not necessarily they will,
but you can get new feet after three years,
at least three years.
Or if the foot breaks, but usually,
that's covered under warranty and that kind of thing.
So, that said, we'll start with feet.
I have a new one now.
I just got this earlier this week.
I have been loving it,
and we'll talk about it a little bit.
The first thing is really foot shells.
That's the outside.
It's the simplest part.
You gotta have foot shell to fill out a shoe.
If you don't,
the foot is too small, it slides around.
Foot shells are tricky.
On the bottom of all of them, they have a size.
This one's a 29.
My new ones are 28s.
The 29s were too big.
In my case, I actually had to shave them down
so they could fit in the shoes.
This one's cracked and old and beat up from that,
because you want them to match your foot
so they can fit well in your shoes,
which, we'll talk more about that
in the very next episode.
Some feet, like a running blade,
don't need a shoe.
They have a sole built in,
and so you would just have one shoe.
One of the really cool things that Nike does
is they have a one shoe program where you can call in
and ask them for a shoe in your size,
and then give them a few color preferences,
and they will mail you a free shoe
to go on your off foot.
So, if you don't wear a shoe on your prosthetic leg
or you can't wear your prosthetic yet,
you can get one free shoe from Nike.
You don't get to pick it out, they pick it out,
but it helps.
These legs are impractical for day-to-day stuff
because there's no heel, you can't stand on it.
It'll just roll backwards,
and so, you really have to stand up
on your toe to compensate.
They're great for running, but not so great for walking.
Plus, because they absorb so much energy,
they're actually designed to be about an inch longer.
So, if you ever see somebody who's not bilateral,
meaning only one leg is amputated,
their running leg will be a little bit longer,
and they can't stand even.
You have to stand with your knee bent
and your foot out in front of you or whatever to balance,
because this one will be a little bit longer.
But it's a really soft, comfortable ride for running,
which really helps.
This is a K4 foot.
Insurance won't cover these.
The next foot is also a K4 foot,
and insurance won't cover it because it's so specialized.
This is the foot I use
for snowboarding and mountain biking.
It's got a mountain bike shock built into it
so that your ankle can flex.
Before I get too deep into that,
I wanna just step back real quick
and talk about the K4 aspect.
Most feet are rated, feet amputees, on activity level.
It's called the K level.
You have K0, K1, K2, K3, and K4.
Basically, K0,
chances are you're probably not gonna make
the most of a prosthetic if you have one,
maybe wheelchair-bound, very minimal use.
And then the spectrum goes all the way up to K4,
where you're basically gonna do anything
that somebody with both of their limbs would do.
And so, K4 legs are usually aggressive,
very specialized,
and not practical for anything
other than the thing you got them for.
That can be challenging,
and that's why insurance won't cover them.
But you can get grants.
There's a lot of great programs out there
like Amputee Blade Runners
and Challenged Athletes Foundation.
They have, sometimes, rolling application processes
or annual cycles,
and you apply for a grant,
and they factor in need, so it's needs-based,
but it's also equipment-based,
and it depends on how much funding
they have available for the year.
That's how I got my running foot,
and that's how,
it made a huge difference.
I don't think I probably would've been able
to pull off justifying a running foot otherwise,
but it's great.
This, because it's for snowboarding, that kind of thing,
motorcycling, horseback riding, mountain biking,
all of that where the ankle flexion makes a big difference,
is also K4,
but this one I paid for out of pocket.
Again, I think if I didn't live in a ski town,
I probably wouldn't have gone all out
and invested in this.
But living in a ski town,
go in the snow a lot, go and mountain bike a lot.
This foot is probably one of the more common feet
that I wear on a regular basis.
Also, so, another thing,
and we'll talk about this with the shoe episode.
This is a sole that can fit in a shoe,
which is great for versatility.
But you can also, with this foot, get different plates.
This was a plate, is a plate,
for clipping in on a mountain bike.
That's helpful, but as an amputee,
without your ankle, it's really difficult to unclip,
so you have to use your hip as your ankle,
and that can make it more difficult.
So, that's not always ideal.
I've found that I just really prefer this
and regular shoes.
And again, we'll get way into those shoes
in the next episode.
This is my very first foot.
It's a Soleus, and it's pretty standard,
but fairly aggressive.
You can see how tall it is.
A lot of feet are shorter,
but the taller the foot is,
the more they can put functional stuff in here
to give you good leverage
and to make the foot more dynamic
so that you can do more dynamic things
and not have that impact shoot up your leg.
In my case, I'm right on the cusp, weight-wise,
of where this foot falls.
This is actually my third one of these
because the first two, I broke.
They were, since I was on the cusp,
we went with the lower, softer one,
which was nice because it flexed more
when I rolled over on my toe to walk.
But the carbon fiber, because of the weight rating,
it ended up breaking away, here,
and they sent me the next one up,
which is the same foot size,
but it's a lot stiffer
and it's a lot harder to walk in.
This has basically turned into my,
I-know-I-can't-destroy-it leg
that I can wear to the beach and that kind of thing.
That's a whole other topic,
and we'll talk about going to the beach or the pool
and how to make that work in a future episode.
This is the All Pro.
Up until my new foot,
this was generally my everyday foot.
You can see because of this huge curve,
this is a 12-inch foot.
My prosthetist said I'm the only person
he's ever fit for the 12-inch version
just because I'm tall and I have a really short limb.
But the tall version gives you a lot,
this is the softest foot I have
because when I roll over on my toe,
this whole thing flexes and bends just the right amount.
But as you can see, it's a lot like the running blade.
This has a heel on it so it won't fall backwards
like the running foot will,
but it does not work well with pants.
What happens is the pants come down
and then they get pushed back here,
and this whole area ends up open.
Not a huge deal, it looks silly,
but for me the biggest challenge,
really, where there's a lot of snow.
If my pants aren't covering up my foot,
this just fills up with snow in a heartbeat.
Not ideal, not good for the foot
as the snow melts and the water's in there,
you don't want it sitting in water.
So, for me, that's always been tough.
A lot of times, I've just worn shorts through winter
because I wanted to wear this leg,
so if I wasn't gonna be outside for a long time,
just wear shorts.
So, with the feet,
if you are doing this much stuff,
I change my feet and my legs constantly
depending on what activity I'm doing.
Not everybody does that,
and you don't always have to.
But the thing to understand is,
every foot, generally speaking, has its strong,
like, strength, and a ton of weaknesses.
They're almost always designed to do one thing well.
You don't realize just how dynamic the human foot is
and how easily we can go from running to walking to jumping.
That's not the same with prosthetic feet.
And so, I'll show you real quick here,
let's see.
If you try to do squats,
normally, your ankle will bend.
You may not be able to see that.
Your ankle will bend and your leg comes forward.
But with a prosthetic leg, when you go up on your toes,
this doesn't bend, it's too stiff.
Your heel comes up.
That throws your knee forward,
and it can twist you,
and it's really, really uncomfortable.
Having ankle movement is so huge,
and that is where this foot comes in.
Because it pivots down here,
I'm not gonna be able to probably replicate this without,
it gives, it's easier when it's on.
And so, you get the ankle motion
and you can bend for squats and that sort of thing.
A lot of people actually work out in these.
You can walk in it,
but it's not the most comfortable foot to walk in.
So, you gain some ankle motion,
but you lose some comfort.
And the guy who makes this, Mike Schultz,
he's actually made a new one
that is more advanced and better.
The shock's a little further back,
and it's got more movement and flexibility
so it feels a little more natural.
I haven't had the chance to try it yet,
but I've heard great things about it,
so I definitely,
if you snowboard a lot, mountain bike a lot,
ride dirt bikes, all that kind of stuff,
this is a really great foot for those kinds of sports
to get you that ankle motion.
And I think it goes without saying,
the running foot, like I said,
standing around in this gets exhausting
because you have to stay up on your toes
or you'll fall back.
And if you're not careful, you really can fall back.
My prosthetist was telling me
that when he fits bilateral amputees with these feet,
you really have to make sure,
he stays there to catch them,
because when they first put them on,
you're not used to it.
If you don't have a sound foot and you don't have any heels,
then you have a tendency to just fall backwards
'cause you're so used to having a heel on your foot.
So, good for running,
not so much for anything else.
I'll talk about my new foot here a little bit,
and I'll talk about the whole system and the socket
in a future episode.
So, with my new foot, it's a vacuum,
which, it's really more of a socket thing
for us to talk about in a future episode.
But what happens is,
there's a built-in piece here so every step I take,
it sucks air out of my socket to hold my socket on,
and so, I don't need a sleeve.
I can just go and put it straight on,
and it has a button to release.
But with this foot,
it's like a miniature version.
You can see the curve, here.
The same concepts, oh, there goes the foot,
kind of apply here, just on a smaller scale.
But the great thing is, this one fits in pants.
Also, you'll see this rubber ball, here.
This is for a little bit of torsion.
It gives you a little bit of cushion,
but it also, again,
I'm not gonna do it without my body weight,
but it twists just ever so much,
so when you plant on your foot and turn,
it gives a little bit so that
you don't have to carry that through your knee,
which for me happened a lot.
my kneecap would hit the sides of my socket
and pop every now and then if I twisted too much
without relieving the weight on my leg.
So, there's a lot to feet.
It's really difficult to find one
that's just right for everything.
You aim to find one that's good middle ground.
And two, right out of the gate,
it's probably gonna be a while
before you can really take advantage
of more advanced feet,
'cause it takes about 18 months, give or take,
to really be comfortable in your socket
and to be done with any leg issues and pain
and discomfort and that sort of thing.
In the case of Challenged Athletes, where I got this,
they want you to be a year out from amputation
before you even apply for a grant for something like this
because they know at that point, it's too early.
You're probably,
unless you're really, really extreme,
probably not gonna get much out of it
until your leg's more comfortable
and really, really recovered and through with the pain.
So, that's kind of the quick rundown on feet.
They vary by weight rating,
so depending on how much you weigh,
and obviously, they come in different foot sizes
so they match your other foot
so that when you do wear shoes,
it'll fit on both feet equally,
you don't have to buy two different sizes of shoes.
But even then, sometimes with the foot shells,
they're not exactly the fanciest things,
and you gotta shave them down.
You can see on this one, too,
I had to shave it down in the early days.
It's had its, it's starting to come apart here, too,
and that's just the way it goes.
So, that's the quick rundown on shoe, or, shoes.
On feet.
If you've got any questions, leave them in the comments.
Love to help out.
I'll try to link to everything in the comments
if you've got questions about where to get these feet or,
you know, so you can do some research,
ask your prosthetist about them, that kind of thing.
And really, that's it for now.
Next week, we'll be talking about shoes
and how do you make all of this kind of stuff
work with shoes.
That's it.
Thanks for watching.
This is Garrett, and you got this.
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