I went to Bradley to see if he had any air bladders that I could put between the flexible liner, and the fiber glass socket. He had some cool air bladders. They are about 2 inches by 4 inches. (5 cm by 10 cm).
I got 2 of them. Each comes with a valve to trap the air pressure, and a pump.
Here is what the bladders look like.
It is not easy to see on the picture, but the one end of each bladder is double the thickness of the other end.
I only have only one pump, but the pump attaches to the bladder with a quick fitting adapter, so I can carry the pump in my bag rather than on the leg.
During the construction and designing, I had many failures :-)
DON'T do it like this :-)
If you remember earlier this year, I was complaining about it taking 10 minutes to put my leg on. It now takes much, longer, and requires more parts and accessories. But it doesn't hurt. That is vital and SSOOOO important.
Here is my morning procedure:
1. Take off the stump compression sock that I sleep in.
2. Put on part of a lady's large pair of tights. I had to cut away most of them. Their purpose is to stop my pubic hairs from getting pulled by the silicone liner. I tried shaving, but the stubble was worse than the hair being pulled out.
3. Next I smear glycerin over the end of my stump. This is to ensure that the silicone liner does not pull the skin on the stump end. Any pressure or force on the stump end is painful.
4. Now I liberally spray a mixture of alcohol, glycerin, and distilled water into the inside out silicone liner. This makes it easier to roll the silicone liner onto the stump.
5. Gently roll the liner onto the stump. I have to be very careful doing this. Any time I pull the liner toward my hip it hurts.
6. Now the liner is on, and the top part is over a part of the tights. The liner has small silicone ridges around it, down the length. On my last few sockets, these would form a seal for the vacuum in the lower part of the socket. This socket with the variable volume, caused by the inflatable air bladders is unable to form a vacuum seal with these small ridges.
7. Put on a sealing ring.
8. Now I put on a thick wool stocking on the top part of my stump because the top part is not adjustable using the bladders. The bladders only are on the bottom part of the stump, but not near the end of the stump. I need a little more security at the top part, so I put on a thick sock. I make sure the vacuum seal will not be broken by the wool sock.
9. Now I inspect the hoses, valves, and bladders. The bladders need to be fully deflated. I have replaced the metal hose clamps with Velcro. The Velcro strap wraps around the socket 4 times.
10. I now tuck the hoses out of the way, and get the valves in a place where I can reach them when the socket is on the stump.
11. Now I inspect all the pieces of foam I have inserted between the flexible liner and the socket shell. These will put pressure where I can not put the air bladders. I use 3 types of foam. They are color coded by compress-ability. White, Red, and Blue.
12. Now I liberally spray the inside of the socket with the same spray I used to put the silicone liner on. With out lubrication, the sealing ring will not slide against the inner flexible socket liner.
13. Now spray the sealing ring, and the whole silicone liner to make it slide easily into the socket.
14. Put the stump into the socket.
15. Push, shove, and bounce to get the stump down as far as possible into the socket. This is the part that scares me most. Any friction causes the silicone liner to try to move up the stump, and forces against the end of the stump. This can be very painful. It is pushing HARD, but gently. Duh!
16. When the stump is as far in as I can push it, it is still not in far enough. This is a bad time, because since the stump isn't far enough into the socket, the leg is way too long, and not steady or supported well. Walking is very difficult.
17. After about 30 minutes of bouncing and walking around the kitchen, the stump is far enough into the socket.
18. I check by sticking my finger in the vacuum valve hole. This way I can feel exactly how far the stump is into the socket.
19. Now to attach the pump to the bladder and pump. The bladders push securely on the sides of my thigh, and hold the femur very tight. The Proprioception increases dramatically. I can feel every movement of the foot.
20. Now I struggle and battle, to get my shorts on. Then I wait for my Buddy to drive up and take me to lunch. :-)
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One of my readers sent me the links to some interesting sites about bionics. Cool stuff.
http://www.cybathlon.ethz.ch/en/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqGx-eUykZLDKjjrwRhfilQ/feed
Thanks for that. :-)
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