Hi ladies, finally found you over here. I used to frequent the Old BBC. You ladies were always so great! 🙂 In case you don’t remember me, my son Levi has a neuromuscular clubfoot/nerve damage in his right leg. He is now 13 months and trying to walk, but has dropfoot from the nerve Air Jordan 3s damage. Anyhow, we just got our first daytime AFO, it’s hinged with a dorsiflexion assist so that when he’s not weightbearing on that leg, the assist lifts his foot to prevent the foot drop and ideally all the compensating things he does as a result.

So, my ? is, have any of you found shoe that go over an AFO? More specifically, a hinged AFO? the hinged part makes it so WIDE at the ankle joint! My PT and I cut up a shoe to try and make it work, no such luck, I’ve been in a million stores and cannot find anything that will work. I can currently put Nike LeBron 11 his soft solded elastic Robeez on him so he doesn’t fall and slip, but we need shoes! I think I found some Walmart Crocs that may work.

Nate doesn’t have that particular brace, but I’ve found with his wide foot plus the SMO that makes it wider, he needs a shoe that comes in extra wide. You basically have 2 options for that in your regular mainstream shoes. I highly recommend New Balance. They come in extra wide, many of them velcro, and you can find them fairly easily. I have found a couple of specialty shoe stores that carry one or two styles, but if you can’t find that, I suggest going to a shoe store to have him measured with his brace on (Nate’s size goes up one or two sizes with his smo’s) and then order them online. I LOVE the New Balance. They hold up really well, and they cost about $35.

The second one is stride rite. If you’ve been shopping around, you may have already tried those out. They typically have more styles in extra wide, but I found that they don’t hold up to crawling very well, and they are usually about $55. I am a little biased because I had a bad incident with a stride rite employee and now I’m boycotting them, lol.

I’ve heard really great things about hatchbacks. I just don’t think they’re very cute, so I’m probably not going to get any until Nate is ready to put his shoes on himself. They do look like they’re a lot easier to put on.

I have previously bought Stride Rite Shoes for my other kids when they are just walking. We don’t have a Stride Rite store in the mall here like I”m used to but I’m going to a local chidlren’s shoe store that does carry stride rite this afternoon.

I just browsed Robeez website and saw that they make shoes with normal soles and elastic on top, not sure if that would work either. I think I need a different size too. I just got my daughter a cheap pair of crocks at Walmart to try out for around the house and she loves them they even have a strap on the back to hold it on. I was unsure about them at first. Also, I’m not sure for boys but, I get alot of my little girls shoes at Target. I have bought her the same pair of shoes 3 times there $12 we buy them one size bigger and they are perfect for the AFOs. You might want to try in the boys section there. Good Luck!!

Jamie, you could try out the Robeez. I was interested in them also because they looked stretchy, but this one shoe store guy said they’d constantly be slipping off the brace. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it kinda made sense to me.

I don’t think New Balance or any other shoe company will let you buy one size of one thing and another size of another. If you could go somewhere for him to try them on, you might see if a Wide (instead of extra wide) would work. On the foot with the brace, just take out the insert. Definitely try them on somewhere before buying them online though, cause I don’t know if the wide would be big enough for the brace. I Air Jordan 1 Retro hope you don’t have to buy two pairs of shoes in different sizes.

Lots of kids use the crocs in the summer though. That might work. I got Nate some at walmart last year, and they just didn’t work with crawling, but I might try them again this year.

I went to the local kids shoe store, awesome, good selection of New Balance, Keen, Teva, and Stride Rite, even said that they could order me shoes if I can’t find anything in the store. Air Jordan 8s Said that the owner is familiar with orthotic fitting in shoes. BUT>>>

I forgot my stinkin’ AFO! UGH, what a day! However, I am taking the AFO back to the orthotist tomorrow. She has the big old d ring/buckle part that holds the velcro in place right on top Air Jordan 14s of the hinge which makes it even wider and I’ve seen a friends and the strapping was to the side of the hinge and I’d like her to move it if possible.

So, tomorrow, we will go back to orthotist and this weekend we will be shoe shopping! I will keep you updated!