Hip Dysplaysia Support Group #2

[Miss.September]

"Oh, so you haven't developed common courtesy yet, but your nearly (insert appropriate age here)" hehehehe.

Hahaha Naomi - you always know how to make me feel better. Love ya! How exciting that Bailey's only got 64 days left in the brace. He's doing things that DD still can't do, so once he's out, hope you've got fast running legs to chase him as he bolts away! We're having family day on Sat for DD's birthday, a quiet bbq with 15 immediate family at home. We've bought her a sandpit, some books and some musical instruments so hopefully she'll love it all.

Pandora - good luck with your appointment and I agree with Naomi - don't google! I'm in Melbourne too and our surgeon has been absolutely fantastic. When we saw the paed when DD was 7 weeks, he just ordered an ultrasound because he couldn't feel anything unusual in the examination. Once the ultrasound came through, we were instantly reffered to our surgeon. RCH are nothing but professional too and lovely caring people. DD has a new issue (groan, non hip related) that she needs an ultrasound for so we're off to RCH again and I so much faith in them. If there is something that needs further investigating, they're the ones to do it.

Corelly x

[smarti]

Hi everyone

I haven't been here for ages but its nice to read some comments from the faithful regulars (!) as well as some newbies!

Our DD was 11 months on the weekend and has been in her rhino brace for almost 9 weeks now. We had our first follow-up appointment with ortho last week and he was happy with the position of her legs in the brace (viewed by x-ray) but said it was still too early to tell how long she will need it. In the first instance, he said a minimum of 6months. So many people have since said to us things like 'oh we had a friend etc.. who's baby had to wear that for 12 months'. Love the positivity!

Anyway, I guess the good thing is that we have been incredibly luck and she hasn't made a fuss about the brace. She even still sleeps on her side - with one leg stuck straight up in the air! Looks uncomfortable, but she doesn't seem to mind - bizarre!

For a month now, all she wants to do is walk along holding hands. This is terrific of course that she can manage it, but my back is getting sore! I also think some serious frustration could set in soon as I don't see how she will be able to walk solo - the brace creates of a bit of a pelvic tilt and of course her legs are so wide apart!

Hope everyone else out there is going along OK with various casts, braces and other hip issues! It's great to have this forum for support and to bounce ideas and experiences off one and other.

x

[crosswig]

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since I've posted but I admit that I have been in hiding with my head officially in the sand.

For those who are newer to the forum our DD 2 was diagnosed with hip dysplacia at birth and went into the pavlik harness at about 2.5 months for a period of 3 months. At DD 2's first review (after she had been out of the brace for 3 months) with the paed he said he thought her hip was still lax in the joint and sent us to see the paed othopedic surgeon. Of course it took us a month to get in to see him so I've spend the last month worried and was trying to work out how bad - brace or cast - it would be. Everyone will know that sick feeling.

The paed ortho had requested another x-ray and specified the von rossen position - legs at 45 degrees not down. Apparently it is harder for older babies to wriggle in that position and give a false positive. The examination went well and the new x-rays showed that her hip is in the joint and the angles are good. Our little minx had wriggled in the first x-ray making her hip look bad. The paed ortho is going to use our x-rays for when he talks to paed to show how x-rays can show a false positive.

The best news of all is we don't go back to the paed ortho untill DD2 is two years old.

Hope you are all well,

Crosswig

[Miss.September]

Crosswig - That's fantastic news! You must be over the moon!

Smarti - How cute that your DD sleeps on her side. It's a hard thing to see, but they somehow manage to cope. I'm sure she'll figure out a way to walk solo, but it's awesome that she can, even at the expense of your back. Maybe DH can give you some massages. Maybe all of our DH's should!!!!!!

It's been about six weeks since we've been brace free. DD has learned how to stand up and the other day showed us that she can actually crawl "properly". Her preferred method is still commando crawl, but hey, she can do it so I'm pretty happy about that. Got our next surgeon's appointment at the end of May, and there's a little bit of anxiousness there, naturally, but I'm hoping that because DD was in the brace for so long that it's well and truly behind us.

Corelly x

[wysiwyg]

Crosswig - Just wanted to say when we were at airport not long ago, we saw a little girl walking in a brace unaided - we were amazed.