AFO adjustments

Yesterday Superstar had his AFOs adjusted to allow for his angle joint to move. He now has a hinge in the ankle joint. The hinge does limit his movement still. As he gets stronger the brace can be adjust to allow for more movement in the angle. The before the hinge picture is not the greatest. However I'm hoping you can see the difference.

BEFORE hinge:

 AFTER hinge:

The gap you are seeing in after shot on the ankle is because he is bending his knees. Bending his knees is causing the ankle joint to "bend" as well. He's using the ankle joint :) If he was to stand up straight then there would be no gap.

The hinge is what is allowing the ankle joint to move. before he really could not stand still and bend his knees because he didn't have that range of motion in his ankles.

Yes he walked and ran just fine. However when he was walking (and running) he kept his ankle at a 90 degree angle, now he can have a little bit more natural movement in the ankle. Personally I don't think he had a 'bad' gait for someone that could not move his ankle joint.

We are going to go this afternoon for ANOTHER adjustment. Adding the hinge also meant new thick stronger padding at the ankle on the inside. His right ankle has what looks like pressure sores started. I've got a band-aid on it to help give it some cushion and protection to the skin while we wait for our appointment this afternoon.

I imagine now that most likely an alteration to the AFO will also lead to going in once or twice for another adjustment. They fitted it and did several adjustments yesterday, we were there for 2 hours, but they just didn't get exactly right. It's okay! I don't mind, I'm just thankful that we got him in again this afternoon.

Oh and we are super excited! I was able to sign him up for 5 week soccer program! It will be 2 practices and 3 games starting at the end of April. They will not keep score, just timed games. 4 quarters 10 minutes each with a 5 minute 1/2 time between the 2nd and 3rd quarter. We also did not need to get special soccer shoes, regular tennis shoes. It's long enough for him to enjoy the game and learn if soccer is a sport he really wants to play. Seeing it's also a short season with just one game or practice per week, it will be enough not to burn him out. He'll have plenty of rest between the games/practices.

The Dr. told us no braces while playing soccer. So I had to get him shoes to wear without the braces yesterday. His shoes size WITH the braces is 5 boys/men. His shoe size WITHOUT the brace is a 2.5 boys. His braces make his shoe size 2.5 sizes bigger! That surprised me! I knew that his braces meant he was wearing bigger shoes, I didn't know it was that much bigger!!!