Bootfitting after a broken ankle

[brice618]

I wrecked my talus about a month ago, making slow/steady progress on the way to healing, but with ski season coming up I'm looking forward to getting back out on snow whenever I can (probably not till later this season if I had to guess). That said given the injury and just looking at my foot as the swelling has gone down, I'm guessing I'm going to need a new set of boots.

Doc said that the foot would at the very least be stiff permanently, and there is a possibility of a future fusion depending on arthritis, which seeing as I destroyed all the cartilage on the bottom of the talus I'm going to guess will be significant.

Mostly I'm just interested to hear from other ankle/foot or other major lower extremity injury skiers and how much it affected their ability to find boots that fit, whether there was long term sensation issues, and how much work the boots ended up requiring to get a good fit. I'm planning on a full on assault to a good boot fitter here in Denver whenever I get to the point where I can ski, so I'm interested in knowing what this will cost me, and how difficult the process will end up being.

In case you don't want to read the other thread to see what I did here's my new bling, and while I don't know for sure, but I'm going to guess my foot won't be the same shape it was...



Here's to skiing with some of you fuckers later this season which will undoubtedly be huge now that I'm injured.

[MTslackcountry]

I broke my ankle 5 weeks ago. Tib/ fib break... 9 screws and a plate. My doc has told me I will be skiing by january. Im sure that my ankle will be slightly bigger so I plan to remold my intuition liner for that foot hoping that there is enough room afforded by that without haveing to blow out the shell. In my experiance the intuion liner does a really good job at taking care of hot spots in the boot without needing shell work. Good luck with the recovery.

[altis]

Ouch!

Here's another recent similar thread with more bling which you may find useful:
http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=79148

[mntlion]

odds are you wil have to get more room made in your current boots, and maybe soften the broken side up a bit too (as that ankle is stiffer, and that leg weaker)

see if you can get your old boots to work first, THEN look at new ones?

[XXX-er]

My ankle was bigger for quite awhile after getting a plate for a spiraled tib/fib

I would say get some intuitions if you don't have them , I was able to ski the next season no problem and I didn't bother re-molding the intuition liners which I already had

[skiing-in-jackson]

You will likely have to adapt your skiing style due to the injury. I'd try to get the old boot as comfortable as possible. Get skiing first, modify the old boot to do whatever it takes to keep you skiing. I tell guys not to get a new boot until you are completely healed.

Usually injuries like this need a fix that is accommodative. Meaning you will need to accommodate the boot to the foot, as opposed as a functional fix, where you would modify the foot's stance to fit the boot.

Now if you think the old boot won't work at all... thank's a different story.

[gregL]

I've had two issues with my left ankle below boot top - a ragged fibula break with a plate and 8 screws (still in) and a ruptured achilles (separate accidents).

Like XXX-er, my leg tended to retain water for months after the surgery both times. I taped a foam strip over the screws/plate and recooked my liner for the fib break and was able to ski carefully the last week of January after breaking the leg the first week of December. I don't advise this, but I had a TAY streak on the line. For the achilles problem, my bootfitter custom formed a wood mold that matched the contour of my heel (it went out rather than in) and punched out the rear of the boot shell. That bulge has also gone down in size over time.

If that's Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, you might give Jim Mates at call 206 297 9298; he's the guy who worked on my boots.

[XXX-er]

I've had two issues with my left ankle below boot top - a ragged fibula break with a plate and 8 screws (still in) and a ruptured achilles (separate accidents).

Like XXX-er, my leg tended to retain water for months after the surgery both times. .

I am talking YEARS of the right ankle being bigger than the left and thanks to universal health care I had the plate out within < a year, taking a plate out is pretty easy and I even walked out of the post op ward, if you leave HW in the leg IME it may get in the way of the next surgery

yes i have broken that leg twice and IME the intuitions seem to take care of the variation with no recooking

Out of curiosity I just measured circufrence of left & right using a piece of rope ...the right is still slightly bigger 10yrs later here

[harpo-the-skier]

Lou Dawson has had a fused ankle since the 70s but has had quite a ski career since then. He also writes a lot about boot fitting on his wildsnow.com blog, including how he accomdates the lack of mobility in his ankle. You should contact him through the website. He responds quickly to emails and also to comments on his blog.

[brice618]

Fuckin-a this place knows everything. Thanks!

[single]

I fit a guy up here with a badly exploded ankle... to the point where he took a couple years off of skiing to rest up and get healed. Apparently he cased a transfer gap ~100 feet.

But he wanted to get back on the snow. Intuitions worked wonders. Just put some spacer material around his ankle to give him extra room during the molding process, and he was stoked.

Not sure if this is what the pro bootfitters would recommend, but it was the solution I came up with, and it worked well for the guy. As the ankle swelling subsided, remolded the intuitions.