Aug 07 2011
Why not wedges under your toes?
Just another thought that had popped into my head recently. I understand that the the reason you remove wedges in your moon boot is to slowly stretch the achilles back to 0 degrees. I have 1 wedge left in mine which gets removed in 4 days so I will be flat footed! Yay! But my thought was why don’t they stretch the achilles past 0 degrees in the boot by adding wedges under your toes once you heel ones have been removed?
Suspect the reason is that the neutral position for the foot should be 90 degrees. If there was a constant stretch to less than this, the Achilles would be stretched and the power in the calf would be reduced. once 90 degrees is reached, then is is about being able to get the flex greater than this for the application of muscle pressure only.
I tried something less extreme than that during my recent (2nd) ATR rehab, and I hated it so I stopped: At ~7-ish weeks post-non-op., after dragging out my old hinged boot and padding around in it, set to hinge from neutral to full plantar-flexion, I tried letting it hinge “up” farther, to -10 degrees (10 degrees dorsiflexion, or 80 degrees ankle angle). I hated the feeling, felt I was at risk, and put the pin back at 0=90 degrees.
I don’t know what’s wrong with your idea in theory, but I didn’t like the version I tried in practice.
Maybe something for me to ask the doc on thursday then eh Markuk/Norm.