Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Children's health

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Experience of high muscle tone in child’s leg

4 replies

Fashion83 · 15/01/2025 22:38

Hi there

I wonder if anyone could help me.

our DS is 3.5 years and has tip toe walked on one foot / walked slightly limpy since 16 months. Physio /orthopaedic surgeon and paediatrician have agreed he has high muscle tone. He has some upcoming blood tests but they don’t want to see him for a year and simply concentrate on physio.

Cognitively he’s absolutely fine. Clever little boy. No other worrying symptoms.

Has anyone got experience of high muscle tone? It’s only in his left leg and ankle. If so what caused this?

Many thanks

OP posts:
Fashion83 · 22/01/2025 00:16

Bump

OP posts:
minipie · 22/01/2025 01:25

Sounds like DD who was eventually diagnosed with very mild cerebral palsy. Physically only her right leg is noticeably affected with a tight ankle. She’s now 12 and it affects her even less now.

She was diagnosed privately, NHS kept telling us there was nothing as she’d met all her physical milestones on time (albeit with hindsight she was wobbly/lopsided for them all).

Fashion83 · 26/01/2025 19:22

Thank you so much. This is exactly what we suspect. How has she coped with school and sports? Thanks for responding.

OP posts:
minipie · 26/01/2025 20:38

No problem.

School

As the start she was very tired. In reception she had to miss 1/2 day or even 1 day a week. However she was also a bad sleeper & always had been (in reception she was waking at 4.45 for the day!) so that contributed a lot to the tiredness. With a good sleeper it could’ve been totally different.

Academically she coped very well, she’s a bright girl, but behaviour was a different story, she was volatile (again of course tiredness a big factor). The end of the day was especially tricky.

The teacher worked with me to warn me when seemed to be getting very tired (ie when she started flying off the handle easily) - this helped so I could manage her. We had very quiet weekends!!

Gradually this improved, year 1 she missed a few half days, year 2 she was mostly full time and since year 3 she’s been full attendance. She still needs more downtime than some but has a busy and full life.

Having a diagnosis helped a lot with school being understanding and flexible, especially when she had outbursts.

I should mention that I wonder if she also has some level of ADHD going on, so it’s hard to know what’s down to the CP alone.

Sports

She found sports tricky but was always able enough to join in thankfully. She did need some extra help/patience from teachers but then so did plenty of other kids. It was clear that she got tired and probably frustrated during sports lessons as her outbursts often happened towards the end of a PE lesson.

At weekends we took her to the playground a lot as a form of physio and also bought a bunch of physical toys for home (wobble boards etc), made her walk a lot, she did physical clubs like Playball and swimming, I think this all helped. However there was always a balancing act between encouraging physical activity as it was great for her CP, versus it tiring her out too much and leading to problems elsewhere.

After about age 10 she got much more into sport, I think her ability improved and she’s now loving it, she’s never going to be top team as her coordination/reaction time is still a little behind but she doesn’t noticeably stand out as different. She does a lot of sport in and out of school and enjoys it. And of course it’s really helped her physically, it’s a virtuous circle, the more she does the better her body works.

In summary (sorry that was long!) there have been plenty of bumps, especially at the start but it’s got better and better and you’d barely know now. She’s doing so well. Diagnosis was helpful for school- more for understanding than adjustments.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page