My Water and Swimming Leg

This leg has been made from parts of legs that I've used before. Even the socket on it is old. The reason for this is that this leg gets really beaten up. I live in Florida, about 3 minutes from the beach which means I am at the beach often. This leg is always in the sand, it gets tossed around, soaked in salt water....but it still works.

I actually store this leg in my shower so I can easily just slide the sleeve off my everyday leg and slide this leg on. Part of the reason this is easy is because I use same liners for all 4 of my legs. So switching legs becomes easier then switching shoes.

The foot I have on the swimming leg is a Flex Foot. This is just an old foot that I decided to reuse. There is nothing fancy about it; it just gives me enough to walk around the beach and float in the water. If I ever windsurf, the foot is just as good because you are just standing on the board. My prosthetist did drill holes in the bottom of my foot shell so the water can drain out. Although sometimes it's just as easy to shake it off.

During the winter, when I am not swimming in the ocean, I will totally remove the footshell for shower purposes only. This way, the water doesn't get trapped at all and the leg and foot dry very quickly. I am just extra careful because without foot shell you are shorter and it's much easier to slip and fall. I had my prosthetist add little rubber pieces to the foot to help reduce slippage.

Suspension System - Otto Bock's Harmony P2

Since I can't use the V-Hold system in the water, my water leg uses the Otto Bock's Harmony P2 system. This is also a vacuum system that manually sucks air from your socket each time you take a step. It works great; the only downside is that if I have a hole or a leak someplace I can only tell by seeing a red ʻhickey' when I remove the leg. Sometimes you can tell by the weight of your leg. If you lose vacuum leg feels heavier.

But this doesn't bother me too much because I only wear it for a few hours at a time. The damage a leak may cause is very minimal. The good side about a system like this is that it typically doesn't just stop working like the electronic versions and V-Hold. It is mechanical and as long as you walk you will have suction.

Saltwater Maintenance

I don't believe that Otto Bock does recommends using the Harmony system in the water, especially in the salt water. However, I do use it in both salt and fresh water and maintain it regularly.

After having it in salt water I always spend 15 minutes in my pool to allow fresh water to recirculate through the system. I will also take my sheath or a sock and wet it in fresh water. The system will suck the water through the internal mechanism and flush it.

If I don't have time to spend in the pool I will just toss my leg into the pool and let it sit for an hour or so. This will also help flush out the system, although it's not as effective as much since I'm not actively working the system by walking in it.

Once the summer season is done, I take my water leg to my prosthetist and have him take the system apart and clean it nicely.