Will my daughter regain the ability to fully extend her arm?

[tigercametotea]

Today my daughter (age 5) was officially discharged. She broke her left elbow in October of last year, the A&E dr didn't cast her elbow, sent her home in a sling, 10 days later on follow up assessment the ortho said he was expecting her to have came in a cast, anyway so an x ray showed her bones have shifted and an emergency fracture reduction operation was scheduled same day, she was then in a cast for 4 weeks after the op. She had her cast taken off in early December and they said her elbow will be stiff and will need to be exercised regularly to help it extend more gradually. She has been fine since, no pain there, just that she cannot extend her elbow fully. Today I asked the consultant abt it, he didn't promise anything, just said she is young so the chances of elbow recovering to what it was before are high, and then went on to add that in daily life its quite unlikely she would require her elbows to extend fully anyway. Right now she can extend it such that it makes sort of a 120 degree angle at the max. Her other uninjured arm, when extended, actually goes slightly over 180 degrees (over extends) naturally. But he has said she culd resume swimming. So I'm wondering if anyone here knows what I can expect from now? How long will it take for the elbow to straighten up, or is there a real possibility that it never will??

I contacted the local private hospital's physio department for a quote last week and they only had a paediatric physio who could see her very soon, who is also the physio consultant in the local hospital. I said I only want to have her assessed first of all to see if she needs physio, but I really am not sure if I could afford the fees for long. They told me to have a think... If she really needs it the physio could see if he could bump her up the list? That was what I was told but it wasn't the physio himself saying it though. I am going to the GP tomorrow, try to sort a referral out first. Do I have the right to request a referral or does the GP need to be very convinced?

just ask the GP to refer you given there was a cock up with the cast and the resulting operation she needed and the fact that you were told it would need exercise.

I can't see that GP would try to deter you from physio as they are best placed to tell you which exercises.

Thanks brass I've just been to the GP earlier, recounted the hospital cock up, etc. as you suggested. He agreed to ask for a referral but admitted he wasn't quite sure how to go about it as he had never had a request for a physio referral for a child before! He said he will be writing the hospital a letter about this but if the hospital comes back to him saying that this isn't the right way to go about it, he will let us know. Now I'm not so sure how long to wait for the reply. A month? A week?

My GP wrote a straightforward letter saying brass needs to be seen because of xyz.

Hospital needs relevant records - operation details/ xrays / surgeon's notes etc so will need contact details to acquire those which they would do through your GP (assume it happened locally - mine was on holiday so they sent me home with my notes/xrays)

They enter you onto the system and should then contact you to make an appt.

I'd wait a week and chase up to make sure that they have received the referral. You can then also ask how long before they'll be able to give you an appt.

I really don't want you to worry, it might be a few weeks but it will be fine.

I know this is an old thread but I am adding to it because I wanted to know whether anybody else has any experience of improving movement in an arm after a broken elbow - specifically when it hasn't been extended for many years!! Thanks.