Dr. Forness

We went to Dr. Forness, a pediatric orthopedic, today in GR. He came in wearing a Bert and Ernie tie, then proceeded to ask Amaya who the characters on his tie were. She replied with "those are the guys with Elmo". We laughed. He was really nice, and made Amaya feel really comfortable.


He seems very concerned with her left hip. She has a really decreased mobility on that side, which will aggregate the other problems of her "knocked knee" and turn that foot in even more. He called the pigeon toe's, "inward toes". He said that is not a problem and that it is a sign that her hips are a little looser and that people with this "problem" are usually fast runners because their joints move a little more. So, I am happy to report that it is not a problem at all. As far as the "knocked knees", he says that we will talk about that later. He did measure the length between the two ankles, and it is 7 cm. Usually people extend their legs down straight, and the feet or ankles tend to touch. Hers don't. The big thing.....we need to worry about this hip right now. There is something going on and we need it to "calm down".

She went for xrays, right in the office, then reviewed them with us. All the lengths are normal, no one bone is longer than the other... causing the longer looking L leg, and the joints look normal. So, what is it?

He has a couple things in mind at this point. The first thing is RA (rheumatoid arthritis), as soon as he stated that, the next thing he asked was..."does it run in the family at all?" (You might say...Grandma Pat, Granny Linda....and then there is me!) She had some blood drawn to run some lab tests to figure this out. The problem with this is, on kids, the RA tests usually come back negative, even when they really are positive.( A false negative) He says looking at her right now, it looks like that, and that she may need an MRI and a follow up with a pediatric rheumatologist. He is putting her on naproxen, which is an anti inflammatory to see if we can help it for the time being. The other thing that it may be is something that starts with a "B", I don't remember the name, but it sounds bad. It is when the top of the femur bone, at the growth plate, dies. (I made a gasping sound when we were in the office and he told us this) He said that if this is the case, that the head would grow back, but tends to not grow back correctly, and is sometimes mis shapen. Anything to do with a bone growth plate on a child is bad. It means chronic problems for the rest of a life, and even surgery. He said that this is not showing up on the xray right now, and being that it has been going on for like 3 weeks already, that he thinks he would be able to see it there. So, back to the big question....What is it??

She is to do NO running, jumping, or any sports (NO BASKETBALL SCOTT!) right now, and we follow back up in 2 weeks. He wants to see if the naproxen helps the situation.....leaning towards RA, if that is the case. He said that we can continue with physical therapy, since it is not hurting her, and hey...who doesn't want a massage 2 times a week. Definitely DO NOT go to a chiropractor for this, it is not something that can just be adjusted, and kids shouldn't go to the chiropractor anyways. ( he is even a DO, and does some manipulation in his practice )

He did say there were some other things for causes, but wants to work on these two things right now and that the others were "zebras". So, we will wait and see.....
To be continued....