Life in a Cast

The reader's got to realize first of all, I'm a 55 year old woman who never broke a bone, except for the big toe in high school, which involved treatment by wrapping it with a piece of tape. I don't even think my walking was affected by that break. Since I had no experience with a cast before, I don't know if the aggravation and pain is usual, or exceptional. If you've never had that experience either, you can read further to compare what I went through to what you're going to go through.



In a word, it is very aggravating. Whatever you do, don't get it wet. It gets even heavier, cold, and clammy. Yuck! I bought a contraption you attach to a vacuum cleaner hose to extract the moisture, but after the first experience, I never got so much as a drop of water near that cast! I also bought a plastic sleeve with a rubberized top with a hole you put your leg into for showering. It worked well, except I was too chicken to test it completely. Even though I had the sleeve on, I still kept my leg outside of the shower curtain while I was showering sitting down. Then I made sure my thigh/knee was completely dried off with a towel before I took the sleeve off.



I'm sure you've been warned about the itching. I did have a little experience with that in one part at the top of the cast near the calf (my cast was from my toes to just below my knee). Supposedly that is also due to an accumulation of moisture under the cast on the skin. I didn't have too many itching episodes because it was winter when this happened, I live in a dry climate (San Diego area), and I have extremely dry skin. That vacuum attachment was also supposed to take care of itching.



Another thing I was warned about was the smell. Your sweaty, clammy skin plus bacteria equals sort of a dirty gym locker, cheesy smell. Again, for me, that wasn't too bad, but I did notice it, and scrupulously started cleaning my exposed toes which helped eliminate that smell also.



I think the whole cast experience was worse for me because I was non-weight bearing, so I had to hold my leg up all the time. There is such aggravation! The thing is heavy, and naturally, my foot/ankle is in a constant position. Oh, to be able to move my foot! I always kept it elevated on a lot of pillows to help with the swelling, which is of itself aggravating. Then my knee was bent for so long, it started to hurt if I tried to straighten it out.

Yet, I thought I could put up with the aggravation better if it wasn't for the pain. There was an almost constant pain of some type - usually dull, achy on both sides of my ankle, sometimes the pain was very sharp, sometimes burning all around the ankle and on the bottom of my foot. Once in a while, I would have a sudden very sharp pain on the bottom of my foot like someone was driving the blade of a large screwdriver straight in. This happened so randomly, not in any apparent response to any position or activity. Sometimes, if I thought I had spent a long time sitting and lying with my leg up, I would try to take Tylenol only, no Vicodin. Ha, ha. The pain got worse. I asked the doctor if I was doing something wrong, like I should be taking a stronger dose or something, but he told me the only combination/amount of medication to take away the pain would knock me out. And since, I didn't feel any pain when I was asleep anyway, and therefore went to sleep quite often, more drugs were not the answer.