Hi mamas!
So a little over a week ago my 10 month old fell down the stairs (about 5-6). He cried and then seemed OK. The next day I noticed that he was not bearing any weight on his left leg. He used to pull himself up and walk holding on to me or a push toy, but he was really favoring the leg and he really was not crawling all that well. I took him to urgent care and they did xrays that were negative. They said to give it a few days and see how he is. He started to crawl better and that is jsut about back to normal. He will pull himself up but usually on his right leg and very tentatively. He still won't really put any weight on his left leg at all and he will not try to walk at all. I ended up taking him back to urgent care becuase I found out that they did not xray the foot the first time and I wanted to make sure his foot was not hurt. The xray was negative again. The Dr. said that it might just be a sprain or a bruise and it can take 2 weeks to heal up.
I am just curious if anyone else has experienced anything like this. It seems like babies are pretty resiliant and I would not think it would take this long to recover from a sprain???
thanks ladies!! :)
from experience a sprain can be much more painful and take longer to heal then a broken bone. Just let him rest it and take it easy and if he seems like he's any pain motrin is the way to go. I sprained my ankle so badly that I had to have physical therapy for months following it.
I work in orthopedics, and from your story it sounds like he may have a slight fracture. Often times fractures don't show up on x-rays right away, but if they re-x-ray the area a week later then the fracture can be seen. (this is because to heal a fracture the bodies cells clean out the bone around the fracture before laying down new bone) Also, often times places like urgent care, even pediatrics, miss fractures, they just don't look at x-rays as much or have the training that orthopedics or radiologists do. That being said kids are pretty good judges of their own injuries and avoiding activities that are painful until the injury heals. So he probably will be fine if you just give it some more time.
If you do want a 2nd opinion, or it's not getting better, I'd go to an orthopedic clinic. I'm not sure where you live but if you want recommendations I know good doctors from in Salt lake, bountiful, ogden, and Logan.
Good luck!
My son when he was 20 months old tripped over my legs and twisted a bit when falling down. He was visibly in a lot of pain and took him to urgent care and they did a great job finding out where the issue was. It took several xrays to find the very slight spiral fracture of his femur. He had to be in a cast for 4 weeks.
I would say if he is not crying constantly in pain he should be okay.
I thought kids were resiliant too but they are like all of us and can have out of the blue accidents like us. It's scary but it happens.
Sprains do take awhile to heal.
I have had the same issue twice with my daughter. Both times brought her to an orthopedic. I was told they are what's called a "toddler fracture." Basically their bones don't really break or fracture the same way an adult's do. Often times they will not see where the break actually was until after the healing, then there will be discoloration on the x-ray. I was told by my ortho that children are way better than adults at administering physical therapy on themselves. Unlike us, they will not put weight on something or use a limb if it is not 100%. This can take up to 10 days. After the first few days you will begin to see improvement, then overnight it will be leaps and bounds improvement. Both times it took my daughter a full 7 days to recover. If you are seeing improvement don't worry. If you are not seeing daily improvement get to an orthopedic. Don't do the urgent care, they are not as skilled at these things. Good Luck!
my baby did the same thing with his arm. at the time he was 12 months. The er could not see a break or fracture but because they know how hard it is to see, they treated it like a fracture and sent me to a Orthopedist the following Monday,(it was a Saturday). He took xrays and did find a non displaced fracture, and they did a soft cast, which was nice for bath time, it took about three weeks to heal. I would see if you could take him to an orthopedist just to make sure it doesn't get further damaged.
Good luck
E.
You should take him to Childrens Hospital. They deal with kids issues better than urgent care does. My son hurt his leg going down a slide with the babysitter when he was 16 months old. We took him to urgent care and they couldn't find anything wrong. The next day he still wouldn't put any weight on the leg so we took him to Childrens Hospital in Parker. They said childhood breaks will not show up on xrays until the child is older, so they treated it like a break. He was put in a splint and sent to the othopedic doctor. The Orthopedic doctor said the splint is the best treatment for that young of an age. He stayed in the splint for 3 weeks and once it was removed my son was walking normal again in a few hours.
My sister jumped off a cedar chest when she was two and limped for a long time, my mom was frantic and did the whole xray thing more than once, sometimes a bruise can be very deep and take days to surface and also sprains can hurt so badly...I wouldn't worry as long as he starts to put weight on the leg in question within a week or two.
My daughter did exactly the same thing around 15 months. It took a few weeks before she was walking completely normally. Since your son has had x-rays & you know his bones are okay, there really is nothing more to do but wait. Sprains can definitely take a while to heal.
Hi. My 21 month old also twisted/bruised/sprained his ankle a week ago. He was limping a bit. He indeed healed within 4 days, (so probably it was not serious). Nonetheless, while he was limping, we took it easy and stayed at home a great deal or in the stroller or ergo carrier.
I was given the advice to take him at some point to the beack to walk around in the sand as that is supposed to help. Ask your dr. though.
In any event, he is fine now as babies/toddlers do heal quickly. :)
HTH. Jilly
