Feeling fatigued? 5 Signs You Need a Prosthetic Replacement
Sunday, February 22nd, 2015 | Prosthetics | No Comments
Achieving and maintaining the best possible fit for your prosthesis involves balancing number of factors. Once you get the fit dialed in, keeping everything working well is important to maintaining your lifestyle. If you’ve recently noticed a change in how your prosthesis feels, if you feel your prosthesis doesn’t seem to fit as well as it did, or if you’re suddenly struggling with certain activities, it may be time to consider replacement.
You feel overly tired or fatigued
If you find yourself struggling to make it through the day without feeling fatigued, you could be struggling with a fit issue without realizing it. In this case, while you may only need a simple tweak or adjustment, it is sometimes possible that you may need part or all of your prosthesis replaced. This is typically a factor of age and use, but there are also lifestyle factors to consider when deciding to replace a prosthesis.
You feel unbalanced
A second symptom of fit issues, usually resulting in fatigue or other more severe symptoms, is feeling unbalanced. Again, a simple adjustment may be all it takes to correct the issue, but it could be the result of a more serious problem with your prosthesis, which dictates replacing part or all of your prosthetic limb to correct the issue.
Your skin feels itchy or burns
Skin burning or itching are other common issues that manifest when there are fit problems. Many times these are easily corrected with socks and bandages, but sometimes serious problems are best solved by switching to a new socket.
Your Prosthesis feels limiting
In many of the above cases, the issues you’re experiencing may dictate replacement. In the case of feeling limited, you may find that your prosthesis fits fine, but it just isn’t designed to do something you want to do. Maybe you’d like to start running or golfing; it takes radically different systems to cope with the stresses of running and launch your ball off the tee during golf. If you add a new hobby to the mix, it’s important not to use prosthesis that isn’t designed for that activity—you may damage your prosthesis or cause yourself a great deal of pain or injury.
Something is broken
Regardless of any of these signs, if you can see something is clearly broken, you need to visit your prosthetist to discuss your options for replacement. Don’t try to stick it out or just repair it yourself, because you risk injuring your residual limb and potentially causing yourself a great deal of pain.
Time for a prosthetic replacement? Give Premier Prosthetic Center a call today at (865) 474-7096 or schedule a free consultation online and let our highly-qualified staff create a prosthesis for your unique lifestyle with our specialized design and fitting process.
