Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Dear Noah:

Well you did pretty well today when we ran over to pick up your orthotics. The woman tried putting the right one on your left foot which really apparently hurt your foot as you screamed and cried. She realized what she had done wrong and then corrected it. While you put them on and stood in them....you were very happy to yank them off. She trimmed them down a bit. We will have to get about 1/2 size larger shoe probably to allow a little more room for you in your shoes now. BUT....I am hopeful we can work you up to wearing these eventually....little bits of time gradually working up to longer periods of time. I explained last night that you would NOT have to wear them forever...and that they would make your legs/feet/ankles stronger so your legs would not hurt so bad when you rode your bike and just played. You are at least OPEN to the possibility of wearing them.

You chose a pattern called TORPEDO...kind of a rainbow swirl effect:

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge Click to enlarge

1 comment:

Melinda said...

I personally think they will be a bit uncomfortable...but maybe he will eventually get used to it. They are made out of hard plastic/fiberglass stuff.....but they do have padding inside where they would hit his foot. There is one spot I am worried about rubbing against the top of his foot we will have to keep an eye on. Otherwise...

They are to GIVE him arches as he basically has NONE right now. AND they are to KEEP his ankles straight as right now the ankle bones are so low they almost touch the ground when he walks. These orthotics will hopefully GIVE him an arch AND straighten or pull up his fallen arches/ankle bone areas...so he will stand straighter...which will in turn not pull the ligaments down in his legs anymore...which will hopefully allow him to stand correctly and hold himself correctly and get rid of any leg pains he had when doing simple things like even riding his bike.

His poor knees were almost starting to touch now because of the way his stance is...so it will correct that too...and everything should be in sync...AND not allow him to have problems as he gets older...as eventually he will have more strength in his arches and maybe not as flat of feet? I don't know. They said if we did not correct this now....as he got older he would have all kinds of problems with his tendons being stretched down too far..etc. That can cause poor posture/stance and then your back hurts, etc. One of his legs is also a bit shorter but apparently most people's legs are. SO they may have to add another piece on that shorter leg.

I am not sure how well Noah will do this...but I think he will try it out...and we will just have to work with him from there. I think it will be extremely binding and hard and I think make him not want to even walk in his shoes let alone try to run or play. Time will tell I guess. (HOW's it going???)