3yo with foot injury. Cannot stand at all. But X-ray seemed clear

[Quangle]

Ds annoyingly jumping on a chair Saturday lunchtime. He fell awkwardly and was immediately screaming with pain. After an hour still a lot of pain and he could not stand at all so took him to our OOH centre. The X-ray was only reviewed by nurses but they couldn't see any fracture and so assumed soft tissue damage around 4/5 metatarsal. V happy with that so went home with advice re cold packs and elevation. They said it would be further reviewed by an expert by Tues (due to bank hol) but probably no further treatment required.

Today he still cannot stand at all. Not even for a second. He can crawl and is bending his foot a bit but no ability to weight bear. There's no swelling at all but clearly intense pain. How long should I assume this is still just soft tissue damage? Obviously we've all experienced sprains etc but after day or so you can usually at least rest yr foot on the floor and this seems quite extreme in comparison. Plus it's like having a newborn again except this one weighs 18kg!

[Loftyjen]

Have you given regular pain relief? It could well be it soft tissue but stiffened up ++ overnight so more painful today.

Also, was only the foot x-rayed or the ankle as well? Don't hesitate to return for review if concerned, but ensure you've given good pain relief & given it chance to work/see if there's an improvement first.

HTHs x

[Quangle]

Just bumping for morning crew. We are day 3 now and still cannot stand.

[Quangle]

Sorry xposted. Been doing Calpol and nurofen alternately every 2 hrs. They only xrayed foot as that is where pain was. Shd they have done ankle too?

[beautifulgirls]

Back to A&E, they need to look higher up his leg and rule out a toddler fracture here.

[littlemiss06]

Was going to say the same as the person above, they need to rule out an injury higher up

[DeWe]

Ds stepped awkwardly off a step in the garden when he was about 2yo, and couldn't weight bear for about a week. when he did begin walking his foot looked sort of twisted. About a fortnight after that he suddenly started walking normally again.

In that time he had loads of x-rays all over his leg/ankle/foot at various times and from lots of different angles. Nothing was brought up on the x-rays. It was almost certainly a soft tissue injury.

[Quangle]

Thanks all, that's really helpful.

And DeWe glad to know how it worked out for you because it sounds similar. As advised, we went back to A&E this morning for another Xray. Drs suspected a fracture because he still can't weight-bear at all (Day 4) so this time they xrayed his ankle and lower leg. Absolutely nothing to be seen. So now they think soft tissue damage and advising to continue with calpol/ibuprofen. We will go back to the fracture clinic in a week for follow-up. I'm hoping nursery will take him back tomorrow - he's very mobile now, just crawling everywhere not walking or standing.