DonJoy ACL Brace - Ski Armor Review
Nine months after ACL reconstruction surgery I was ready to return to the ski slopes. I tore my ACL playing soccer and had been able to return to cycling and jogging quite quickly after surgery. However, skiing is a whole new challenge. I was never an expert skier but a casual intermediate with a disregard for too steep, too deep or too many trees. Skiing was to be a challenge indeed.
Tearing an ACL necessarily leads to periods of inactivity and with the ultimate goal being to return to the ski slopes I spent time researching how best to do so. I found some published papers that showed that professional skiers who use an ACL brace to support their instability when they return to competition are 3 to 4 times less likely to re-tear their ACL than those who don’t wear a brace. I started my search for a brace.
During the period between my ACL injury and surgery I had used a DonJoy TROM knee brace for rehabilitation purposes so I was well aware of DonJoy and started my search there. There are five main types of DonJoy brace designed to support the post-surgery patient return to their daily activities. The five DonJoy ACL brace types, in order of strength or degree of instability supported, are:
- DonJoy Defiance (a custom made brace requiring prescription by a PT professional)
- DonJoy Armor (a custom fit brace, i.e. off the shelf, designed for contact and extreme sports)
- DonJoy 4TITUDE (the lowest profile brace)
- DonJoy Legend (designed for use in water)
- DonJoy Playmaker (a wraparound brace available in non-neoprene for those with neoprene allergies)
The applicability and strength of the Armor range coupled with the fact that it is a custom fit design which I could specify myself on the internet led me to focus on this range. When I discovered that the brace was available in a shortened calf model especially for use with a ski boot, I had made my choice. The retail price of the DonJoy Ski Armor was $500 or thereabouts at The Brace Shop.
Sizing was a challenge. The Brace Shop did have a sizing chart on their website but on taking the appropriate measurements I found I fitted none of the combinations of calf/knee/thigh combinations. Fortunately, The Brace Shop has Live Chat on their site so I was able to get some help (the knee is obviously the key measure to work from) and I placed my online order for the brace.
My DonJoy Ski Armor arrived after a week or so. On first inspection it seems nice and light with the appearance of being sturdy enough to endure the buffeting of a mogul run. The instruction manual was disappointing in that it was printed in a really small font with diagrams that were too small to be instructive. To be so dependent on a product as you hurtle down a mountain without the comfort of knowing how to fit the brace was a contradiction I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
In reality I needn’t have worried. The brace fitted nice and easily with a resultant snug fit around my knee. It also has a nice low profile (bearing in mind that this is a mechanical brace with a hinge) and so fitted easily under my ski clothes. And so to the slopes of Eldora Ski Resort in Nederland, Colorado.
Building strength back up in my knee (or at least in the surrounding muscles and ligaments) has been a long struggle to the point that some days lifting any kind of weight on my leg has been painful and uncomfortable. The simple joy of sitting once more on a ski lift with the support of my Ski Armor brace was accentuated by my ability to easily lift the weight of boot and ski as I brought my leg parallel.
In fact the day passed totally without incident to the point that I even forgot I was wearing the brace. Even better, it didn’t move out of position at all and provided a day of skiing that I often wondered if I would ever get back to.
In summary, despite some concerns on sizing and fitting the DonJoy Ski Armor has proved an amazing purchase giving the mental confidence and physical support to hit the slopes once more. It’s lightweight, low profile, comfortable and seems to provide increased strength to the joint. Marks out of 10? A strong 10 from me!
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Tags: donjoy acl brace, donjoy armor, donjoy defiance, donjoy legend