So as you might or might not know Juliet requires the use of Forearm Crutches. Due to her severe Fibro condition she can’t walk on her own 2 feet without severe pain that will cause her to fall constantly.
We had attempted getting them through Assistive Devices Program in Ontario (ADP). Sadly at least at the time Juliet was declined because of the Height requirements she needed. I was not with her at the time so sadly I don’t know exactly the entire story but she ended up having to buy it with her own money and that was a challenge being on Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
The model she requires was the 8153-T and from my understanding the T is indicating the tall version. Juliet is 6 Feet 1 Inches in height. You might have heard these crutches as Canadian Forearm crutches and their not the prettiest looking thing but they do their job mostly.
Comfort wise as your main source of moving around it can be hard on your hands and forearm as it’s made out of solid hard plastic that can rub your skin off with prolong usage. I personally think these would be great for temporary setting but not so much as a full time crutch.
So getting to our title… Forearm Crutches From Hell… Simply put these Forearm Crutches seem to have an insane failure rate for us. Three times so far the Plastic Cuff Rivet’s have sheared off and caused Juliet to fall hard. In fact the last fall was so bad that she was in pain for over a couple of weeks. Keep in mind that she has the Fibro and things don’t just heal up the next day for her sadly.
The good news is Invacare was quite decent to us. We contacted them 2 out of the 3 times and even though it took some effort and work they had replaced the crutches for us. The first time they replaced both crutches and the second time they replace the cuff as they were discontinuing this model.
Sadly though at this point for Juliet’s needs, the crutches can be quite dangerous and honestly a ticking time bomb waiting to break again in the future. Not only will there be a fall, but there will also be no crutches left to go to.
We are hoping in the future to get support through ADP for new Forearm crutches, but so far we have not had luck as of yet. We be really happy to have just a spare set and that way when something does happen we have something to fallback right away without 2-4 week delay for parts.
We have contacted and checked out some manufactures in Europe for Forearm Crutches. There is so many amazing designs and features with them, but sadly their costs even just the shipping is out of our current price range for now. Hopefully one day our government will work to bring some better Forearm Crutches into Canada.