club foot treatment

dd was born with a club foot. They don't know what causes club feet; there's a 1 in 800 chance of being born with one. What *I* can tell you is that when I was 8 or 9 wks pregnant with her I had food poisoning brought on by pesticides... I was canning 100 lbs of (non-organic, i.e. sprayed) cherries, and was eating them while I worked... and before I washed them. I got really sick and later I read that this is when the legs/feet develop in the fetus. So for me, there's an obvious connection, one which the medical world will not acknowledge because there's been no research done on that. nonetheless, dd was born with a club foot.

When she was an infant, she had weekly full leg casts, and then wore a dennis-brown splint full-time for 3 months and every night until she was 4 yrs old. At that time, it looked like the foot was corrected and no further treatment was required.

Sometime around 7, we began to notice her running gait was changing. She went through a growth spurt and then it was obvious the foot was relapsing. Back to the specialist. She spent 6 wks this summer in a half-leg cast.

But the foot is relapsing AGAIN. So now it's on to surgery. Basically a tendon transplant. You see, 1 in 800 kids will have a club foot. 3 out of 4 of those will respond to casting (the Ponsetti method) and avoid having surgery. Only 1 in 4 kids will need the surgery. I should buy the kid a lottery ticket, lol. So she'll have casting prior to the surgery, as well as after. There's a bit of a wait list, so we're now just waiting to get a date. And because it's the tendons, the healing time is long - like over a year to 18 mos before she regains full strength and mobility in that foot.

It'll all be fine, but wow, hey. Soooooo blessed to live in Canada with our fantastic medical system and also sooooooo blessed to have a world-renowned specialist in club foot at our local hospital. Absolutely fantastic.

In the meantime, she's hulahooping around the house and jumping on the trampoline, riding her bike, dancing ballet and jazz, hiking, generally you really wouldn't notice anything wrong with her foot at all. And here she comes, in a witch hat and cape, pretending to trick-or-treat, hoping I'll give her a candy. LOL

you've GOT to be kidding.

Wow. So things have been really going well lately - very drama-free. :) And a couple months ago, I don't know why, but I went on this little bent about everyone in the family getting full health check-ups: eye exams, dental cleanings, a general wellness check-up with the GP (whom the kids haven't had to see hardly at all since birth b/c they're so healthy)... and a couple things came out of it for my daughter. One, we are getting her heart murmur checked up on, so she's going for an ECG soon. The paediatric cardiologist isn't terribly concerned about the murmur and feels she'll outgrow it. (phew) The other thing I wanted to check out was her foot. She was born with a rather stiff club foot. It required full-leg casting as an infant for a couple months, followed by a full-time Dennis Brown splint for the next few months, then wearing it every night until she was 4 yrs of age. We were very strict about her wearing that splint *every* night. So at age 4, she had 30 degrees of flexibility in her foot and was deemed "cured" of her club foot - no further treatment was recommended at that time. And so I *thought* we had it beat, so to speak.

Fast forward 3 yrs, and we'd started noticing her running was... unique. Her left foot would turn slightly in as she ran. Her left calf is noticeably smaller than her right. Her left foot is a full shoe size smaller than the right. And the chiropractor pointed out that her left leg is indeed shorter than her right, and is affecting the alignment of her pelvis and spine (and perhaps we need to think about a heel lift for that left foot). She'd had a little difficulty learning to skip - to double hop on that left leg - but with practice and help from her dance teacher, she'd mastered skipping.

This in a child who is ACTIVE. She dances, skates, jumps on the trampoline, bikes, skips, plays hopscotch, climbs trees, plays soccer, rides a scooter, etc., etc., etc. She's really VERY active. She learned to walk at 10 months of age. Other than skipping, there hasn't been any noticeable (unexpected) delays developmentally in regards to the leg.

The GP sent us back to the paediatric orthopaedic surgeon for a follow-up visit, as we haven't been to see him in 4 yrs. He had her run, skip, and walk for him today, and in bare feet, I immediately saw what was happening: she's not using her left heel. She's walking on the outside of her foot (suppinating). And the club foot is slowly but surely *RELAPSING*.

Sure enough, she's lost those 30 degrees of motion to where now it's in the negative. It needs treatment.

I'm shocked.

Treatment consists of 6 weeks of full-leg (full-time, i.e. non-removable) fibreglass casts (she's SOOOOOO excited that they'll be cool colours that she can pick: pink, purple, red) and see how much range of motion we can recover. Apparently her tendons and muscles are just really stubborn, and it is unusual for a relapse to occur after the treatment she's had already. However, now that it's happened once, it may happen again during adolescence (requiring more casting and possibly at some point, surgery - hopefully she's outgrown the heart murmur before we face the surgery option - I'm not keen on the idea of a general anaesthetic when one has a heart murmur).

The first cast goes on soon - like, just over one week soon. And because she's focused on what colour to pick (and is looking FORWARD to the casts), I'm really trying to hide my dismay at having to go through another round of casts. This needs to be done - no ifs, ands or buts - so *I* mentally need to suck it up. *SHE* is stellar about it all - absolutely no qualms, and she even asked excitedly if she'll get crutches (because she *wants* them?!? who *IS* this kid?!). Despite her apparent excitement, I still think this summer may have its moments where it seems excrutiatingly long.

Still, I'm trying to tell myself it's nothing that can't be fixed. It's not all that serious. I'm spinning a little right now, but it's kinda like when I was pregnant with her and the ultrasound showed the clubfoot and I was first told about it. Just shocked. But once the surprise wore off, I could put it in perspective - it was correctable, and fairly easily (and non-invasively) so. And we are SOOOOOOOOO blessed to have a world-reknowned specialist in JUST this thing living in our city. Truly, SOOOOOO blessed, as he is AMAZINGLY gifted and very respected for his work.

So even though I'm surprised at what came to light today, I'm thankful that I have my past experiences to help me put it in perspective more quickly (and that I don't have the hormones of pregnancy colouring things at the same time, LOL). It's all going to be just fine. Take it from the kid herself - everything's going to be *just fine*.