Anyone with experience of correcting a 'bendy' foot?

[The Nappy Lady]

It's a long shot I know but my 13 month olds feet curve slightly inwards and she walks slightly on the outer edges of her feet. She has been walking since 11 months and we are lucky enough to get care through the NHS and specially shaped shoes that gently correct the foot position.

All brilliant except my little one is really unhappy in the shoes - can't walk, crying etc. She is supposed to wear them all day - 12 hours if possible but so far we haven't managed more than two.

I could do with some moral support - anyone been through similar? I'm not giving up, will try to increase the time she wears them each day, but it is quite upsetting seeing her trying to walk and getting upset etc. when normally she is such a busy happy soul running around the place.

Molly

[The Nappy Lady]

It's a long shot I know but my 13 month olds feet curve slightly inwards and she walks slightly on the outer edges of her feet. She has been walking since 11 months and we are lucky enough to get care through the NHS and specially shaped shoes that gently correct the foot position.

All brilliant except my little one is really unhappy in the shoes - can't walk, crying etc. She is supposed to wear them all day - 12 hours if possible but so far we haven't managed more than two.

I could do with some moral support - anyone been through similar? I'm not giving up, will try to increase the time she wears them each day, but it is quite upsetting seeing her trying to walk and getting upset etc. when normally she is such a busy happy soul running around the place.

Molly

[lorraineliyanage]

Is there any way she could wear them at night?

[lorraineliyanage]

Is there any way she could wear them at night?

[The Nappy Lady]

Good idea but they are so solid and clumpy I suspect they would disturb her. At the moment tho I can get her to wear them in the buggy and dozing there so maybe....

Will speak to hospital again in a week or two if no improvement.

They look like tiny Timberland boots and the soles are much harder than normal baby shoes which I think is part of the problem, plus of course she is having to readjust her balance. Poor baby. :-(

M

[snowboarder]

Oh - no help obviously - but poor C (poor you!). They do actually fit her properly I suppose?

[The Nappy Lady]

They were fitted at hospital so should do.

I think it is good to start trying to fix now while bones are soft but so hard not being able to explain to her.

They said it can take up to 3 as it's a very gentle process (other route is to put her in plaster - much more aggressive) so I guess plenty of time to get her used to them. Just hoped someone else on here might have been through it already.

Molly

[vinceayre]

When I was a school a class mate had feet like that and was called spaz all the way through school and teased terribly, I know it is hard for you now but you must keep on with it for your baby's sake.

Vince

[The Nappy Lady]

I know Vince - it isn't that pronounced with my little one thankfully - people only tend to notice once I point it out to them, but even so I'm sure in the long run it is going to cause her problems with choice of shoes etc. She's having a nap now, shoes on....I will perservere, however bad I feel at times about it.

Thank you, need all the moral support I can get!

Molly

[helena handbasket]

My son has the same thing. When he was a year old we were advised to watch and wait to see how he walked. Apparently it is common for children to outgrow it by around five (after several years of shoe wearing and frequent walking). He is now three and it seems to be somewhat better.......we still notice sometimes, especially when he's tired. But he's very agile and athletic and not at all clumsy, which is what the doctors said to look for. We didn't do the special shoes, although I did ask about them. We will be meeting with a podiatrist soon to discuss future plans but honestly feel that they are almost "normal". Of course as a parent my only concern is to avoid leaving him with anything that could leave him vulnerable to cruel children, as mentioned earlier.

If it makes you feel any better, I had a severe case as a baby and had the surgical correction. It was sorted long before I was walking so have no memory of it, but have never had any issues at all and was never called "spaz" at school! :)

[millsa]

Hi Molly,

My son was born with club foot - right foot was turned 45 degrees inwards. We found out at the 22 weeks scan at Kings, but it was still upsetting to see it when he was born. Six days after the birth he was put in a plaster cast, from the top of the tigh to the toes, and the foot was corrected after seven weeks. But then he had to wear special boots and a metal bar between them (looked like a snowboard) for 22 hours a day to prevent the foot turning back inwards. He was in the boots for months. We have had fantastic care provided by two physios at Kings and I will be grateful forever for what they have done. My son is now 15 months and his foot is perfect :) He runs around and you would never say the foot was so twisted.

I have had a few moments of weakness and I felt upset sometimes - we couldn't bath him for the first few weeks because of the cast, and then he looked 'trapped' in the boots and the bar - but we just got on with it because we knew it was for our baby's best.

It is worth putting up with the stress the whole thing can cause you and your baby, for the sake of your baby. We are also very lucky to be so close to Kings, which is the country's centre of excellence in orthopedic treatment for children. I know how hard, distressing and upsetting it can be sometimes but keep going, as this is the best care you can provide for you baby :)

GOOD LUCK and DON'T GIVE UP

x

[helena handbasket]

Hi Millsa

What you describe is exactly what I had done, the tiny little casts, the boots with the bar etc. (my parents still have them..... the casts are so tiny!) but aside from pictures of me as an infant with them I have absolutely no memory of it and have had no problems since. So sit back and feel good about it all because he will be fine now and will never know the difference. It must be traumatic as a parent, but I just wanted you to know that.

What my son has is not anywhere near as extreme, but of course it has made me worry a bit anyway. I think it depends on where the bend is. Mine and likely your son's was at the ankle, hence the more dramatic approach. My son's is more at the toe, so it's more a matter of straightening out the shape of the foot. Molly, I certainly wasn't suggesting you abandon the shoes. But I thought I would reassure you that with such a slight bend (and can I be presumptuous and assume it's more at the toe like my son's?) I think that if you keep her in the shoes as much as you can it should be okay. She hasn't been in shoes much yet at this age, but once she is wearing them more often it should turn the toes slightly over time. I have often wondered if we should have had the shoes, but see that between one and three he really seems to have corrected quite a bit with just normal shoes. I would imagine that a few more years will really set it.

I have to admit that I always thought his little chimp feet were delicious!

[The Nappy Lady]

Thank you so much both....this all really helps.

I think maybe the timing is bad, in as much as she managed to master walking so well at around 11 months and now loves whizzing around, and the boots completely throw her. I wish they had given her what I have now discovered are 'open toed straight last' shoes when she was smaller as I suspect she wouldn't even have noticed it. Now, as a tenacious 13 month old she is VERY ANGRY about them!!

However, I will put them on her as much as I can, and hopefully she will adjust to wearing them little by little, and also it will improve naturally anyway.

I have done a lot of on line research today and it seems that she has what would be classed as mild to mid range Flexible MA (Metatarsus Adductus)- the flexible bit is very good news, it means the foot can easily be pushed back into the correct shape. This often self corrects in the first year, or by the age of 3 (as you said HelenaHandbasket). So, the prognosis is good.

I have also set up a support group (because I can't find one anywhere) for parents who are coping with MA (or club foot for that matter), it is a Yahoo group - link below. If you (HH and Millsa) would be willing to post your experiences on there it would be wonderful, as I suspect it would help others like me to know they are not alone, and that it is worth sticking with the treatments.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/metatarsus_adductus/

Thank you so much again for taking the time to reply to my post, I feel so much better.

Millsa, so glad your little one is OK now, it must have been very hard to go through with a new baby, but all worth it now.

Molly

x

[helena handbasket]

Hi Molly

I was trying to come up with a bit of a solution to your shoe problem. I'm wondering if you could find some regular shoes that are a bit on the clunky side, but not as annoying as the corrective ones? We recently bought a pair of very heavy soled, high topped sneakers at the Gap for instance. Maybe make them "special playground " shoes or something like that, and let her wear those a bit to get used to the weight and learn to balance in them? I can only imagine the frustration of loving the freedom of barefoot toddler running to being locked into clunkers! Also it might help her to gradually get her balance, which is a big part of the problem at 13 months I suspect. I don't think that spending a few weeks slowly getting her used to increasingly bulky footwear will be time lost, so I wouldn't worry too much there.

Poor babies! It reminds me of a friend with a baby boy who needed a corrective helmet. As you can imagine, he hated it, and when she would put him in his cot at night his form of protest was to run his helmet head back and forth across the cot rails. Clunk clunk clunk! Somehow they all get through it, tough little critters. :)

[The Nappy Lady]

A problem shared...

Lorraine, your suggestion of night time correction got me thinking, and I have found a possible alternative stright last open toed boot that I can buy for baby C to wear over night that may solve the problem. Need to speak to the Podiatrist at the hospital first, but fingers crossed it may be the solution.

Thank you for helping to make me think laterally about the problem.

Helena, thank you for your suggestion too - will hold this as 1st reserve, depending how things go.

Molly

x

[lorraineliyanage]

Nighttime is the only time in our house that Iris stops wriggling and jiggling hence why I thought it might be the best time for C to wear the shoes. Maybe you could even put them on her once she has fallen asleep? Good luck!

[alieh]

Hi Molly. Sorry that C is having to go through this. I had some kind of foot issue as a baby (my big toes were at right angles...not sure what that's called) and had to wear the clunky boots for months. All day and night. My mum tells a story about how they left me with a babysitter one night (sitter arrived after they had put me to bed) and when my parents came home they saw that the sitter had taken off the boots and lined them up beside the bed. They still laugh thinking about what that babysitter must have thought, with them putting their tiny baby to sleep with huge clunky boots!?

Not much help, but my feet are completely fine now so it is, of course, worth it. The suggestion about a transitional type shoe seems like a great one and hopefully your new idea about the boot at night will help.

[millsa]

Hi Helena,

Thanks for your warm words :) I feel much more relaxed about it all now as casts and boots for 22 hrs a day seem like a distant memory. But still, when I kisss his little feet, I sometimes cry out of happiness that they are fixed and that he won't remember a thing.

Molly: I will definitely post something on the group you set up. One ED Mum approached me recently at Dulw Library and said that her then 10-month-old son would need to be put in a cast, and then boots. She had seen my boy in the special boots at the library over the last few months and because he has always been very cheerful, she hoped her son would also take it well. And he is, bless him. And she knew he would be, but just needed a bit of reassurance from me. I think we (parents) struggle with it more than the little ones, and that's why it is so important to hear the 'trivial': 'it is going to be all right'.

Thanks for starting this thread Molly. It is all going to be all right :)

x

[The Nappy Lady]

Quick update for those who have been asking....

Put the boots on today and baby C pottered off quite happily in them (stomp, stomp, stomp)!

Will see how it goes, but going to see if she will tolerate them for 3 or 4 hours if possible...progres - hurrah!!!

Molly

[helena handbasket]

Fantastic!