Okay, so I tend to get a little overwhelmed by this whole blog thing. I wait forever to post and then forget to say what I wanted to say. Here's a few notes that I either forgot to list or just felt to lazy to type:
1 - If physical therapy doesn't help with flexibility, Dr. Morcuende suggests that we look into getting an AFO for X-Man to wear during the day, then bracing at night and bedtime. He would prefer not to go this route because X-Man already has severe atrophy of his calf muscles and the AFO could cause this to get worse. So for now, we spend an hour at PT each week and then do exercises daily and stretching twice a day. We go back at the end of May, so we're hoping and praying that we good get results! Of course, he's already had AFOs and it really wouldn't be a huge deal - I'm just as happy as can be that we're not even discussing surgery at this point. It's amazing how much different the treatment is from a true Ponseti doctor compared to one who just claims to be.
2 - So, X-Man somehow broke his foot. We noticed after his initial Physical Therapy consultation that he was turning his left foot out and hyperextending his knee when he walked. He would also scream whenever we tried to move his foot or put them in shoes. I emailed Dr. Morcuende on a Sunday afternoon and he had emailed back by that evening (how amazing is that?!). We emailed back and forth and he recommended that we either come out to Iowa or see a doctor here in town. We took him to our pediatrician and they wrote an order for an X-ray. The X-ray showed that he had a reaction to an occult fracture in the shaft of the third metatarsal. I emailed the report to Dr. Morcuende and he said that it was likely a hairline fracture that would heal on it's own in 7-14 days. Luckily, that was the case and X-Man is walking great again with no pain (thank you, God!).
X-Man just finished week 4 of PT (week 3 with his "physical parakeet Windsey" (PT Lindsay)). He loves PT, not a big fan of stretching, but normally I can bribe him with some sugarless gum. His ankles are already feeling looser. They're still very stiff, but it's progress, and we'll take it!
Broken?! Oh no! Boys huh? Glad it is feeling better already.
ReplyDeleteMatthew's left calf is much much smaller then his right partly due to clubfoot, the rest due to daily AFO wear. Not much we can do about that. Hoping it will only be a cosmetic issue when he is older. I joke he get a calf implant when he is older.
Glad to hear the p/t is helping. Crossing fingers for you guys!