Well someone else here must have used them and may be able to help.
I sprained my right foot/ankle 4 days ago and I am now using crutches to help me get around.
How are you supposed to use them to get up and down the stairs?
Cheers
Adam
Don't even try. Move up and down stairs on your bum and carry the crutches with you. What you will find useful is a small tote (like an old gas mask bag) in which you can put a small thermos flask a small bottle of milk and a mug so that you don't have to stand and drink your coffee in the kitchen!
HTH.
John
Onto the step with both, and transfer weight forward. Not easy apparently.
OR use them to prop you up while you out the good leg on the next step. then grab the handrail and use that to haul yourself up and transfer weight onto the good leg and off the crutches. Then pull the crutches up with the spare hand.
Alternatively, sleep downstairs for 6 weeks. Seriously. My MIL has crippling arthritis. She takes 20 minutes to get upstairs every night and she has two legs that work. Albeit total agony as they do.
My two friends who are paraplegic..nothing works below the waist.. don't even make the attempt. Bungalow/one floor flat living ONLY.
I've found it *possible* WITHOUT crutches when I have bashed a toe or something to pull myself up on the handrail by hopping.
I hope you don't live alone..if you do, I think you may need some friends in.
It depends how much pain you are in and what medical advice you have received, but a sprain alone is not a reason NOT to use a leg. It hurts like sin if you do, of course - you know that, but I think you may be able to get enough use out of it to at least steady yourself without putting serious weight on it.
I think the first thing is to understand the 'disabled mentality' which is that some things you thought nothing of, are now serious challenges, and need to be thought out in advance, planned, and executed carefully and rather frustratingly slowly.
Thank the stars you are not paraplegic. Faced with crawling face down to something that you can pull yourself up by, if you fall over and lose the crutches.
And finally, deepest sympathy - being injured is crap. Just thank someone somewhere that its not permanent. And shove a payment into 'help for heroes' sometime, on the basis that you now know a little of what they go thorough every waking minute of their lives.
Best luck, be patient and you will get there.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher saying something like:
Have you quite finished?
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "ARWadsworth" saying something like:
Everybugger's different. Some find that having the affected limb paired with a crutch is the way forward, others find that having the limb opposite the crutch works for them. Either way works, but the hospital will tell you the first way. Going up and down stairs simply needs adapability - you figure it out as you go, it's not rokkit syens, ffs.
Leave the crutches downstairs. R knee and left foot, with use of hands for balance etc then hobble about upstairs.
A little exercise is beneficial
Very carefully.
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Try using a single walking stick - it can sometimes be easier and safer.
Cic.
Didn't the hospital give you lessons? When I broke(*) my ankle a couple of years back they wouldn't let me out with crutches until the phsyios had shown and seen me move on the flat and negotiate stairs, up and down, on crutches.
Up: Place both cruches one step above where your feet are, slightly wider than you shoulders apart. Lean forward lift you body with your arms and give a slight hop to get the good foot onto the same step as the crutches.
Down: Similar to up, crutches one step below, if anything lean a little back lift your body with your arms and slight hop to lower your good foot onto the same step as the crutches.
The work of lifting/lowering most of your body weight is done by your arms. You'll soon end up like popeye. B-)
(*) Are you sure it's just a sprain? I was hobbling about on my broken ankle for ten days before one of the nurses that was treating the other injuries got an inkling that it might be broken and sent me off for an x-ray... In some ways I'm glad it wasn't discovered for 10 days, otherwise it would have been surgery and some screws to put the medial malleolus back onto the bottom of the tibia. But after ten days and it not being a mobile or displaced fracture they just left it alone, to do anything would have required breaking what had already healed. So they just stuck a lightweight cast on to stop me moving it too much and make it hard to put any weight on it for a few weeks and an inflatable brace for a few more weeks after the cast came off.
Go up on all fours less the sprained one. Come down on your bum, with sprained leg crossed.
Prepare for the next sprain: Buy an Equine instant ice pack off Ebay, you burst a bag in a bag which makes it go cold. One in the van. Buy an ice gel pack which you leave in your freezer.
Sprains follow a path.
1 - injury, then immediate bleeding - get ice on FAST. The faster you get the ice on, the faster you will recover. 2 - stiffness - you need an elasticated bandage. Powerlifter elasticated knee bandages are the best because they have two rubberised sections interwoven with the elastic so they naturally grip when overlapped without having to be tight. That makes a very big difference in that turning over at night does not wake you up with pain, it supports without restricted bloodflow. Normal bandages are crap in comparison. 3 - recovery - load the ankle for 5 mins at a time standing, if pain builds sit down, repeat every 30mins or so. The body adapts, but there is a thin line between adaptation & injury so you want to stay in the adaptation side of it. 4 - re-mobilisation - staying off any joint will result in it becoming stiff making recovery slower & putting load on other areas. When you are young this compensation is not noticed, as you get older it is.Sprains may have a cause.
1 - you may wear one side of your shoes more than another 2 - one leg may be longer than another (not uncommon) 3 - you may have an unknown spinal injury (any history of back problems?) which can result in foot strike not being particular clear re feedback when tired (sciatic nerve) 4 - you may have tight hamstrings (to use their short name) which can increase chance of sprained ankle but also knee loadingsThe best thing you can do is twice a week swim for 30mins. Swimming involves a fluid in front of & behind limbs - so acts as a natural brake to movement reducing peak loads on joints, ligaments & muscles. It is a wonderful rehab medium. Swimming also, critically, strengths muscles that are not normally used which means they can be compensatory for other problems. Remember when you have any injury the body seeks to compensate, in doing so that can create problems in itself. Swimming is very effective. Humans have not fully adapted to walking on two legs, there are a few hundred thousand years to go yet re L5-Sacrum angles. Some people are several hundred thousand years behind, but they tend to work at Argos. Doing 20 lengths a week twice (or 30min starting out) is quite sufficient, the benefits are very noticeable skeletally, musculatory & circulatory in later life. Medicine is great at giving a shit quality of life for longer :-)
Considering your occupation is notorious for injuries, start swimming because it makes a big difference re shoulders, intercostal muscle strength (ribs), knees, ankles & particularly back. Specifically it will improve your "gait" - the way you walk becomes less falling and more controlled muscle motion. You can always spot a well practiced sprinter, because they walk in slow motion with proper pelvic control & balance :-) You can always spot an idle one because when they run they do not lift their knees, usually girls because their mothers screamed "you can keep your bleedin' legs together even when you run you tart!".
Sideways with only one stick or on your bum. BTAGTTS more then ones.
Unless you want some more broken bits to add to those you've got!...
Poor old soul, give her my best regards from a fellow "Arthur" suffer tho not as bad that that yet;!..
Yes when I was laid up last year with a broken Femur that was the best option, downstairs. After that wheelchair and then Zimmer frame and then the crutches, 'tho I could NEVER get on with the ones under the armpits the elbow ones were far more successful...
Getting up the stairs was a PITA literally!, and rather awkward took quite some time it did and never felt that it was something I wanted to do alone in the house either..
Second that:)..
I have not been to hospital.
That seems to work
No.
Cheers
Adam
So who gave you the crutches then?
We pay 36 billion a year for the NHS. £500 a year for every man woman and child.
Might as well get your moneys worth.
Get an X-ray.
And experience more radiation in a second than you get from the entire global nuclear power industry in a year! (including Chernobyl)
So where did the crutches come from? Have you been shown or told the correct length/height for them, that makes quite a difference to how easy they are to use and it's not quite as intuative as one might think.
For got to add make sure the crutches are firmly placed on a secure surface (any lose rugs get rid of 'em!) and that the load is near vertical.
Get yourself off to hospital and get an x-ray. I didn't think I'd broken mine but the medial malleolus was completely detached from the bottom of the tibia. If your wondering what the medial malleolus is, it's the bony sticky out bit on the inside of your ankle.
Something similar happened to a work colleague 25 years ago. He and his wife had booked a long holiday in some slightly 3rd world location I don't recall, for which he'd saved up 2 years worth of leave to take consecutively. First couple of days of his holiday was actually preparation and shopping prior to departure. During the shopping, he stepped off a kerb and badly twisted his ankle. Spent next several hours in A&E, where it was checked, X-rayed, etc, and he was sent home with pain killers for a sprain.
Anyway, off they went on holday, him hobbling. After another couple of days on holiday, he still couldn't walk and ended up in a wheel chair, which he spent most of the holiday in. When they eventually arrived home, they were greeted with a letter from the hospital which had been sitting on the doormat all the time they were away, saying the X-ray had been misread, and he had a broken ankle. Anyway, that meant they could write off the holiday as sick leave and claim on the holiday insurance, and a few months later, they took it again. I don't recall if any more treatment was applied to the ankle - I imagine it would have healed by itself after that length of time.
A large bag of frozen peas works very well too. If you are out when it happens, you might be able to pop in to a local shop and buy one. (Once thawed, don't eat the peas though - they go off very fast when they start warming up.)
When I was given crutches by a hospital in the 80s they taught me: "Bad foot first down to hell, good foot first up to heaven". Can't quite remember how the crutches fit into this, but it seemed to work at the time. Be aware that the current advice may be different and my memory ain't what it used to be!
A neighbour whose son had sprained an ankle a few weeks ago! I offered to drop them back at the hospital for him as I have already got an appointment there on Tuesday.
I have had 3 X-rays of my teeth already this year:-(
The swelling is going down and so is the amount of pain. Lots of nice brusing.
Adam
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