MAG stress fracture?

[2G1B]

I spoke to DS's coach today after we got home from states. (his coach is a chiropractor plus grew up as a gymnast... so, while not an orthopedist, he certainly knows more about this stuff than I do.)

Yesterday the doctor said, "minor sprain". The coach today said that he tested the range of motion and various other things on DS's foot before taping it. He said that the ligaments and muscles seemed fine. The pain is one particular place - the inside ankle bone where it sticks out. Bending his foot certain ways while bearing weight hurts. pressing on that part of the bone hurts.

When he got up this morning he said the pain wasn't that bad. By the time we got home from the competition it was hurting much more. When I took the tape off it was the first time it has hurt enough to make him tear up. After that he spent hours on his bed, with his foot propped up. We iced it off and on. (When I took him dinner in bed along with a new book he said, "Now I know what it would be like to be a king!" ) By the time I was getting his sisters ready for bed and needing to get him to brush his teeth he was thoroughly put out me wanting to carry him rather than having him walk. He says that his foot barely hurts now. It only hurts when he has been on it a lot.

I had a pretty severe sprain over the summer and for me it hurt if I put weight on it. Didn't matter if it was after being off of it for hours and hours or after being up and about for a long time. It simply hurt at all times to put weight on it. Resting it did not immediately make it better like seems to happen with DS's foot after a few hours of rest.

Anyway, I spoke to the coach about what is going on. He is now worried that it is possibly a stress fracture that just didn't show up on the x-rays on Saturday due to it being too new. He said it can sometimes take as much as a week for a fracture in the foot to show up.

I have started reading tonight about stress fractures. The symptoms do sound a lot like what is going on for DS. The only thing is that he doesn't practice all that much (at least it doesn't seem excessive compared to other gym kids or even his sisters). He is in the gym 7-8 hours per week. (He will be 9 years old in 1.5 months.) If it were a stress fracture, would that likely be indicative of some other underlying problem? A vitamin D deficiency did pop into my head... he has very fair skin and anytime he will be out in the sun for any significant amount of time I am sure to coat him down with high SPF sunscreen...

I'm also wondering how long I should wait before taking him to an orthopedist. The doctor at urgent care (it was a branch of our children's hospital) didn't seem very worried about the ankle at all. For now we have borrowed an air cast from one of his friends and I was thinking that i'd leave it off when he is off of the foot; but once he goes back to school (hopefully Tuesday if his fever is gone by then - oh yeah, he came down with a fever/sorethroat/cough today) I thought that the boot would make it easier for him to get around to classes because with the ace bandage he is limping a lot. How long should I let it go like this before I decide to head back to the doctor? I'm thinking about calling tomorrow to see if I could get in later this week since it can sometimes be hard to get in with pediatric specialists...

 

[Deleted member D3987]

tell the chiro/coach to put a tuning fork on it. he'll know what that means.

 

[2G1B]

Dunno - does that actually work? When I sprained my ankle pretty bad last summer a friend who is a chiro suggested the same "test". If is *does* work, then why the heck don't the doctors in the ERs and urgent care places try it since they all say, "if it is a small fracture it might not show up on x-ray yet"???

 

[Granny Smith]

I just jumped on this thread because I saw the title. My dd back in the beginning of Feb. was diagnosed with a stress fracture on the 1st metatarsal, not where your ds is complain, but she also had a stress fracture on the navicular bone. The navicular bone is right on the inside part of the ankle just above the arch of the foot. Navicular stress fractures (NSF) are very hard to diagnose. Neither one of my dd's stress fractures showed up on a x-ray, but both showed up on the MRI. Most NSF are treated with non-weight bearing casts because NSF are considered high-risk due to the location of the bone, the lack of blood supply to the area which leads to slow healing.

My dd competed her 1st couple of meets on these stress fractures and was able to walk the whole time. Once diagnosed, she was immediately casted. I would get your ds to a good sports med doctor. My dd's doctor knew right where to push, with his finger (the N-spot) to re-create the pain, he sent us for the MRI and when we can back with the results, he was able to diagnose for sure, but it seems he already had his suspicions.

 

[Granny Smith]

From all the research I've done on the navicular bone, it seems that most who have this kind of fracture are runners. But, other can develop this type of fracture due to the way they walk. I know my dd developed her stress fracture from gymnastics, but I did notice that sports med dr. observed her walking in bare feet (before I knew what was going on), after my research, I'm guessing he did that to see if the way she walked could of caused the stress fracture.

Oh and just to warn you, the research that is out there on navicular stress fractures is depressing. They seem to warrant a ton of time for recovery, but stay positive. I was actually just looking on this site to see if there was a place to blog my dd's injury and recovery, because I think it's just facinating how it has gone and I wanted to share so if someone googled navicular stress fractures maybe it would give them some hope, as well.

 

[profmom]

No experience here, but I really hope you can get a solid diagnosis soon, and that he heals up quickly!

 

[J&A's mom]

I can't read every word on here because of time, so you may have said this already. I would take him to his regular doctor or more because what I have read. This was a looooong time ago, but I had reaccuring stress fractures in my wrists. Today it is hard to hold a galloon of milk up in the air. This is because they were never treated the right way(mostly my fault, but some fault of the drs not diagnosing well).

I hope you can get a solid diagnosis soon, and that he heals well!!

 

[krisnkids]

We have a chiro-dad at our gym. He looked at dd's wrist and said he thought it was fine, full range of motion.

 

[2G1B]

I decided to go ahead and take him in today to see a pediatric orthopedist. He didn't take new xrays because he saw the problem from Saturday's x-rays. it is the tip of that bone the ankle bone that sticks out on the inside of the let. Apparently some people have an extra growth plat over on that bone and my son is one of those people. He also has a stress fracture over there.

he is in a boot for 2.5 weeks, then we go back for new xrays.

the doctor said that he doesn't think that there are any underlying issues and he doesn't think that DS doing gymnastics once this heals will be a problem. For now DS can do conditioning; but nothing that involves landing on the foot, even with it in the boot.

The doctor was nice and actually have 2 kids in gymnastics themselves - a son on preteam and a daughter on team. So it was nice that he didn't jump to me being crazy for letting DS compete yesterday like I suspect some doctors might have done.

 

[krisnkids]

I am so gag that you have an answer, sorry that it is a fracture though. There's a ton he can do without landing on his foot.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using ChalkBucket mobile app

 

[MyBoysFlip]

Sorry about the fracture! Hopefully it will heal quickly and completely.

 

[2G1B]

sorry for my horrible typing/spelling in that update! I'd go back and fix it; but for some reason I can't edit that post...

 

[skschlag]

Sorry to hear about the fracture but glad you got some answers! Hope it heals quickly!

 

[J&A's mom]

I am so glad you went in to. Glad he found out what the problem is. Sorry the answer was a fracture, but its better to know than not, right?

 

[2G1B]

I am so glad you went in to. Glad he found out what the problem is. Sorry the answer was a fracture, but its better to know than not, right?

That is my thought! I'm glad that I didn't wait for a week or so (what the urgent care doctor said to do) to see if it got better. This way we can start it healing now, rather than this whole week taking it easy only to then have to start the treatment and possibly have it injured even worse due to walking on it for a week.

 

[sjm2b3]

ouch!!! Glad you got an answer and hoping for a quick recovery.

 

[Chocoholic]

My daughter has the same problem! She's in a boot right now. Keep my posted on your son's progress!

 

[2G1B]

My daughter has the same problem! She's in a boot right now. Keep my posted on your son's progress!

We go Thursday for new x-rays. He doesn't have any of the soreness that he was having (before if you touched the spot on the inside of his ankle he would cringe and he said it really hurt). I haven't let him walk on it at.all, so no clue how that would go. A week ago he was still complaining about it hurting after walking a lot; but now he says it doesn't hurt at.all. So I'm hoping that the boot will come off Thursday!!

 

[GymBee97]

I never trust Urgent Care or the ER with diagnosis. they seem to be almost always wrong because they usually are in a rush to get the next guy in. That isn't the first time I've heard the ER say its nothing but an ortho say look at this fracture.

I always do a follow up within 7 days after an Urgent care or ER visit. The er visit is more to make sure it isn't really borken or really serious.