Most operations slow you down. Foot and ankle surgery removes a foot from the equation entirely, often for six to twelve weeks, and it does it to a house that was designed on the assumption you have two.
Non-weight-bearing means exactly what it says: nothing on that foot, not even a steadying touch, not even for a second. It is one of the strictest instructions in orthopaedics, and it is strict because the healing bone, tendon or fusion underneath cannot take load yet. The result is that everything in your home is now measured by a single question: can I do this while holding myself up on my arms?
That is the question this guide is built around. It is deliberately not a shopping list of everything sold for foot surgery. It is what to change in the house, in what order, and which purchases follow from those changes.
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Decide how you are going to move, before you buy anything else
Every other decision follows from this one, because a knee scooter and a pair of crutches turn out to need completely different houses.
Crutches go anywhere: stairs, narrow hallways, the gap beside the toilet. They are also tiring, hard on the hands and armpits, and they occupy both arms, which means you cannot carry anything at all.
A knee scooter (a knee walker) is far less tiring and leaves one hand free, but it needs a turning circle. It will not do stairs, it struggles on thick carpet and gravel, and it needs roughly the same clear width as a wheelchair.
A wheelchair is worth considering for the first week or two if the surgery was extensive, or for longer distances.
Most people end up with two: a scooter for downstairs, crutches for the stairs and the bathroom. We have compared them properly in knee walker vs crutches. Ask your surgical team first, because a few operations rule the scooter out, particularly if the knee on that leg cannot bend comfortably to ninety degrees or if the other leg is also affected.
Shop these: Knee scooter · Forearm crutches · Crutch pads and grips
Measure the doorways, and measure them now
This is the step people skip, and it is the one that causes a knee scooter to be sent back.
A standard knee scooter is roughly 22 to 24 inches wide and needs about a metre, a little over three feet, of clear space to turn. Take a tape measure around the ground floor before you order. Measure the narrowest doorway, the gap beside the bed, the space between the kitchen counter and the island, and the entry to the bathroom. Anything under about 26 inches will be tight, and anything under 24 will not work.
If the bathroom door is the narrow one, that is not automatically a problem. Plenty of people scoot to the bathroom door, park, and hop the last two steps on crutches. It is worth knowing in advance rather than discovering it at midnight.
Clear the route, then clear it again
Walk the path from the front door to the sofa, and from the sofa to the bathroom, and from the bathroom to the bed. That path has to be wide, straight and empty.
Take up the rugs. All of them, not just the obviously loose ones. A rug edge is the single most common thing that catches a scooter wheel or a crutch tip, and a fall onto an operated foot in week two can undo the operation.
Tape or reroute every cable that crosses a walking route. Move the low coffee table, the umbrella stand, the shoe rack and the dog bowl. Prop open the doors you will use most, because opening a door while holding two crutches is a two-part manoeuvre nobody enjoys.
Add a light to any stretch you will cross at night. A couple of stick-on motion-sensor lights along a hallway and at the top and bottom of the stairs cost very little and remove a real hazard, since you will be up in the night more than usual.
Shop these: Motion sensor night lights · Cable cover strips · Non-slip floor mat
Decide where you are going to live, and be honest about the stairs
For most people the answer for the first week or two is one floor. If your bedroom is upstairs and the bathroom is downstairs, or the other way around, decide now which one moves.
There is nothing wrong with sleeping downstairs on a sofa bed for a fortnight, and it is a great deal better than doing the stairs six times a day while exhausted and on painkillers.
If you are keeping the stairs, learn the method before your operation, while you still have two working legs. Going up, lead with the good leg and bring the crutches after. Coming down, the crutches and the operated leg go first, then the good leg. Many people find it easier and safer to do stairs on their bottom, one step at a time, particularly for the first fortnight, and there is nothing undignified about it when the alternative is a fall.
Never carry crutches and anything else at the same time on stairs. If you can only manage one banister, use the banister and leave the crutches at the bottom for someone to pass up.
Elevation is where you will actually spend the first two weeks
This is the part people underestimate. After foot and ankle surgery you are told to keep the foot above the level of your heart for most of the day, often for the first two weeks and sometimes longer. Swelling is the main thing that causes pain, delays wound healing and stops a cast fitting properly, and elevation is the main treatment for it.
Above heart level means genuinely above: lying down with the leg propped up, not sitting in a chair with your foot on a stool. That is a fairly demanding position to hold for hours, which is why it is worth setting up properly rather than improvising with sofa cushions that slide apart every twenty minutes.
A leg elevation wedge is the item that makes this sustainable. It holds the whole lower leg at a constant angle, supports the calf rather than just the heel, and does not collapse.
A second one, or a spare set of pillows, wherever else you will sit. If elevation only works in one room, you will spend two weeks in one room.
Set up your main resting spot before you go in: the wedge, a small table within arm’s reach, a charger, a water bottle, and the remote. Our guide on what to keep beside your bed covers that setup in detail.
Shop these: Leg elevation pillow · Bedside table · Reusable gel ice packs
The bathroom
The bathroom is the room where the most falls happen and the room a scooter usually cannot enter.
A shower chair or stool is not optional here in the way it is for other operations. You cannot stand on one leg on a wet surface for the length of a shower, and there is nothing to hold if you begin to go.
A waterproof cast or dressing cover. Get the right one. A cover for a below-knee cast is a different length from an above-knee one, and a sealed reusable cover is far better than a bin bag and tape, which leaks and is genuinely dangerous to stand in. Ask what sort of cast or boot you will have before ordering.
A grab rail, if there is anything solid to fix one to. A suction rail on tile is a balance aid, not something to hang your weight on, and it must be tested every single time before you trust it.
A non-slip mat inside and outside the shower.
A tub transfer bench, if what you have is a bath with a shower over it. Stepping over the rim of a bath on one leg is the single most dangerous thing you will be asked to do all day. A bench lets you sit down outside the bath and slide across.
More on the technique in how to shower after foot surgery.
Shop these: Waterproof cast cover · Shower stool · Tub transfer bench · Grab rail
How you will carry things
With crutches you have no hands at all. With a scooter you have one, and you need it for steering more often than you expect. This is the problem that quietly ruins the first week, because it turns out that almost everything you want to do involves moving an object from one room to another.
A rucksack is the answer, and the answer costs almost nothing. Wear it in the house. Everything goes in it: phone, book, water bottle, snacks, medication.
A crutch bag or scooter basket for the things you want to reach without taking the bag off.
A travel mug with a sealing lid. An open mug of tea and a knee scooter are incompatible.
A grabber, kept downstairs, for the things you drop, which will be more things than usual.
Shop these: Backpack for crutches · Knee scooter basket · Travel mug with lid · Grabber reacher
The kitchen and food
The kitchen is the hardest room to make workable, because cooking is a standing, two-handed, carrying-hot-things activity.
The realistic answer for the first two weeks is not to cook. Freeze eight to ten meals in the week before your operation, in containers you can lift with one hand. Move the plates, mugs, kettle and everything else you use daily down to counter height, so nothing needs a high cupboard or a low one.
If you are going to prepare anything, a perching stool at the counter makes a real difference, and a tray that slides along the worktop moves things without carrying them.
Beyond that: get the shopping delivered, and set the first delivery for the day after you come home rather than the day you come home.
Shop these: Perching stool · Meal prep containers · Non-slip serving tray
What is a waste of money
A second knee scooter for upstairs. Almost nobody ends up using it. Crutches or a bottom shuffle handle the stairs.
Cheap underarm crutches when you already have a pair. The hospital ones are usually fine. What is worth buying is a set of pads and grips for the pair you have, which fixes the actual complaint.
A hip kit. Sock aids and long-handled shoe horns are for people who cannot bend at the hip. You can bend. Buy a grabber on its own.
An expensive knee scooter with all-terrain wheels, if you live in a flat with laminate floors. The all-terrain versions are genuinely better outdoors and on thick carpet, and genuinely unnecessary otherwise. Consider hiring rather than buying either way, since you will use it for eight weeks and then never again.
A cold therapy machine, bought before you know whether you can use it. Many foot and ankle patients come home in a cast or a boot that cannot be removed, and a machine that cannot reach the skin does nothing. Ask first.
Anything for the bath. You will not be having a bath, and the wound should not be soaked at all until your team confirms it is fully healed.
A sensible order to do this in
Three weeks before: measure the doorways, decide crutches or scooter, order whichever needs delivering, and sort the stairs question.
Two weeks before: take up the rugs, clear the routes, tape the cables, set up the elevation station, and fit anything that needs a drill.
One week before: cook and freeze the meals, move the kitchen and bathroom things to reachable height, buy the cast cover once you know which cast you are getting, and pack the rucksack.
The day before: charge everything, put a night light on the route to the bathroom, and set a delivery slot for the day after you come home.
The minimum list
A way to get around, agreed with your team. A shower stool. A waterproof cast cover. A leg elevation wedge. A rucksack. A grabber. Rugs up, cables taped, and ten meals in the freezer.
The non-weight-bearing period is genuinely hard, and no amount of equipment makes it pleasant. What the preparation buys you is the difference between a recovery where you can look after yourself and one where you cannot, and that difference is worth an afternoon with a tape measure.
This guide is part of our foot and ankle recovery series. See non-weight-bearing after foot surgery for what the restriction actually involves day to day, and the full equipment guide for more detail on each item.
*Always follow the specific instructions of your surgical team about weight-bearing status, elevation, cast care and when the wound may get wet, as these vary a great deal between procedures.*