When Rusty started walking at about 13 months of age, he often walked on his toes. So did our other boys. The difference was that the other boys walked more often on their feet and eventually stopped walking on their toes. Rusty, at age 6 1/2, was still predominantly toe walking.
I’d brought it up at yearly check ups and the response was that he’d probably grow out of it and as long as it wasn’t impacting his quality of life, not to worry. When we were hiking in Goblin Valley in April and Rusty couldn’t keep his shoes on to do some of the hikes, I decided it was impacting his quality of life.
We ended up at Primary Children’s with a pediatric orthopedist. Our options were casts on both feet for 6 weeks or physical therapy. I opted for physical therapy.
Twice a week for over a month, Rusty went to therapy. When he started, he could not pull his toes toward his shins even 90 degrees on his left leg – that’s how tight his heels and calves were. He generally works with Eli (I’ve got to remember to get a picture of them together next time) for his exercises and then gets a massage with the “tools of torture” as he calls them from Chad.
The office I chose (because we’ve been friends with Chad for years) has a mascot. His name is Frank…
Most often, Frank is asleep while we are there. Sometimes he wakes up for a good petting!
Rusty warms up on either the treadmill or the elliptical (the treadmill is his favorite), does a series of corrective walks, stretches on a stretching board, plays catch while stretching on the board, uses a rocker to lengthen his calves, and does strength exercises with an exercise band. Eli turns everything into a game and the two laugh a lot. Then Chad massages and it is hard to tell if Rusty is laughing or crying!
6 weeks later we are down to once a week visits. Rusty can now pull those toes past the 90 degree mark by almost 10 degrees. We are still working on making his heel hitting the ground first a habit, but at least now his body is physically able to walk that way. When he started, his muscles were too tight to walk correctly – his feet curled out and he could NOT walk right. One of his exercises was to learn how to walk pigeon toed – at first he had no ability to do that and it was hard to watch him try. Today, he not only pigeon walked with his heels hitting first, but he speed walked pigeon toed with his heels hitting first! Lots of improvement! I’m not sure how many more times we will need to go in. Rusty really enjoys it and he is really good at doing his exercises at home with minimal reminding.