The Return of the Dreaded Boot!
It appears here in the Kitch household we love “the boot”. We can’t seem to get enough of it! We all feel we need a turn wearing it so we don’t feel left out. It’s really super fun…NOT!
This was me in 2011.
Eli in 2013..who also happened to be in 4th grade!
Alayna has been having heel pain for a couple of months now. The past two weeks have been especially painful. I finally took her in to our favorite foot doctor, Dr. Krahn. It helps that he used to be in our Ward a few years ago too! 🙂
They gave her some fancy booties and then took her over to get some x-rays. I love in house labs! As a mom with 3 kids it really is a blessing to not have to go to your primary care doctor who sends you to a lab who sends you back to your doctor. Who has time for that?!?
Thankfully, our insurance doesn’t require referrals so I just took her in to the specialist and by passed all the grief! 🙂
She looks fancy! 😛
Then back to wait for Dr. Krahn and her results. He came in and examined her foot before he showed us what to look for. As soon as he touched her foot in the very 1st spot he touched he said, “Does it hurt there?” She yelped, “YES!” He knew exactly what it was before he even saw the films. That’s a smart doctor! 🙂
Love digital technology! So fast!
He explained that kids have growth plates…which is basically space that looks like cracks on an x-ray..that allows the bone to grow. When children finish growing it fuses together and there isn’t any space left.
If you look at her heel you see at the back portion of the heel a crack that runs down it and if you look super close at the bottom of her heel next to the mouse arrow cursor but to the left…..let’s look closer…
That little tiny crack that is to the left of the cursor is another growth plate. He said they can become inflamed. Usually it’s with kids who are in tons of sports, running, and continually pounding the ground with their foot/feet.
She’s not in any organized sports but she plays hard, jumps on trampolines, roller blades, plays soccer and football at school, races all the kids at recess…she’s active! It also doesn’t help that we have hard floors throughout 90% of our house. Going barefoot all the time doesn’t help either.
So you guessed it! She was the lucky duck who won her very own Storm Trooper boot! I told Dr. Krahn he should order these in white so kids would think it’s cool and wouldn’t mind wearing them if they thought they were Storm Troopers. 😛 He also placed a gel cushion inside to help pad the heel even further.
She didn’t realize she was going to have to wear it before we left. She wasn’t too happy. 🙁 I don’t blame her…It stinks!!!
He wants her in it full-time at school and if she’s not home. No PE and no volleyball, which she JUST started last week. We are so sad! 🙁 At home she needs to wear crocs or any type of slip on shoe will do so she’s not walking barefoot on the hard floors. She can take the gel cushion out of the boot and put it in whatever shoe she wears at home.
He wants to see her back in a month and we’ll see how the inflammation is doing. It’s possible she may have to wear the boot longer than a month. It just depends. Once she’s cleared and the pain is gone she can resume wearing normal tennis shoes with the gel insert inside.
He said he doesn’t feel this will cause long term problems for her. Especially if we treat it now. The biggest issue is once it becomes inflamed like this it can recur. So….until those growth plates fuse and she’s done growing, which he said for girls is about 14 years old, we will need to watch that foot and make sure to take care of it if it flares up again. Poor girl…
It’s taking some getting use to…she keeps losing her balance! LOL!
That’s better…we even got a smile! 🙂
I’m not sure if you noticed too that all 3 of us are wearing it on our right foot!!! So weird!!
