If you're regularly tripping because you're not lifting your foot up, it's possibly foot drop. I started tripping about a year or two before I found out that I had MS. I was walking thru the mall once, and face planted on the floor. If I'd only done that once, it wouldn't have disturbed me so much, but for about a year or two before I found out I had MS. I was tripping a lot during the summer. Enough that I was starting to wonder what the deal was with that.

After I got diagnosed, and I started having various areas on my legs go numb, the tripping started to make sense. When I developed the foot drop, that kind of convinced me that the occasional tripping that I'd been doing was from the foot drop, it just hadn't gotten so bad that I'd really notice it unless I was walking really fast, or walking on uneven ground/flooring with lots of rugs.

When I got the full blown foot drop, the kind where you're dragging your leg behind you, that's when I had to go to the physiatrist and get the AFO Rx-ed to me. Mine is an articulated AFO. It's two metal braces that are mounted on my shoe. It has hinges on it to help lift my foot. Supposedly to help me walk more normally, but something happened earlier this summer, and I feel like I'm dragging. I saw the physiatrist earlier this fall, and he didn't seem concerned about it.

I asked about getting the electronic thing that goes around the calf of the leg, that triggers the nerves to help me walk. He said he'd help me look into it, but either he forgot, or his staff didn't try very hard to contact me. I got a phone call from them a week after I saw him, but I was at PT and couldn't answer my phone. Whoever called me from his office didn't leave a message, and every time I call back, I always get sent to voice mail. I. Hate. Voice. Mail.

My insurance changes in a week, so I'm probably not going to get the fancy electronic nerve triggering thingie. My new insurance's deductible is higher than the cost of the electronic thingie...plus it's a medical device and the new ACA regulations say they can tax you a bunch on medical devices. So, it's probably not going to be affordable to me. (the electronic thingie costs $6,000. My new deductible is probably $10,000) Kind of peeved about that. I'm going to miss my old insurance with the $2,500 deductible.