Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Wednesday (1/13/2016)

Update:

On December 15, 2015, I had a nerve block done in hopes of decreasing the pain in my residual limb enough that I could wear my prosthesis again.  This was done after doctors determined that there was no obvious surgical solution to my pain.  Unfortunately, the nerve block didn’t completely remove the pain and I wasn’t able to walk.  My medical team has been trying to come up with another potential solution.  It was decided that my prosthetist would build me a new leg using a totally different system to see if that would work.  I’ve been using a pin system for support.  We are now trying an elevated vacuum system.  The vacuum system should spread my weight out over the entire limb when I am standing.  As the name implies, there is a vacuum pump attached to the leg that creates a vacuum inside the socket to hold it on my leg.  I’m really hoping that this might be the solution to my pain problem.

My prosthetist told me that now that we know there isn’t any structural issue that can be easily corrected by surgery; we can experiment with stuff and hopefully find an answer.

Today I was measured for the liner.  I go back to my prosthetist next Tuesday (1/19) to be cast.  By the following week, I should have the check socket to try on.  At that point we’ll have a good idea whether this will work for me or not.  If it works, we’ll buy the pump and everything I need to take the leg home and give it a good tryout.  Sounds like I’ll be using the Ottobock Harmony system on my leg with a Willowood Limb Logic pump. 


One way or another, I should know by the end of January whether this will allow me to walk again or if we need to come up with some other plan.  I’m hoping that this is the answer we have been looking for.

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