2 year old broken femur not recovering well

[OneAvidTraybake]

Hi

just looking for any advice or if anyone has experienced anything similar with their little one.

Almost 12 weeks ago my 2 year old suffered a spiral fracture in her left femur. She was in a brace for 6 weeks, that came off about 5 and a half weeks ago.

she didn’t walk on it for a little while and at first she would only walk on her tiptoes. About 3 and a half weeks ago she started putting her foot flat but ever since then she will only walk on the edge of her foot. She’s really rolling her ankle in and only walking on the side of her foot. We’ve now noticed that the foot is becoming misshapen and it’s actually getting worse.

i am phoning fracture clinic first thing in the morning to get an appointment to be seen. The aftercare has been rubbish and non existent, no physio or anything.

in the meantime I just wondered if anyone had experienced something similar, or had any tips or comfort? I’m so worried about her

try to find a private paediatric physio.
one or two sessions should be enough to assess her and give you tips/exercises.

are you giving pain relief? if not give nurofen/calpol a go before going out.

did you have an x ray to monitor healing?

one exercise physio gave us was to mix poster paint with liquid soap (1:1) and paint the soles to make footprints to help with the sensation of putting the whole foot down.

I agree with the others that you need to get her looked at asap.

My DC broke their femur (spiral fracture) at 20 months and was in a "hip spica" cast for 6ish weeks. As soon as the cast came off, they went back to running around completely normally. No physio because we were told that small children are so active they are essentially doing physio all day long.

My son had a spiral fracture in his lower leg. He was a bit older (age 4). The cast came off and though he was moving about again fairly quickly he would throw his leg out at an odd angle when he ran.

If I’m honest our experience of the fracture clinic was once the fracture was repaired, providing the remaining problem with walking didn’t need them needed to break the bone again they weren’t interested.

In our case it’s been about 2 months now since the cast came off and his running is much closer to normal and I’m sure he’ll get there on his own without more help.

But for your DD I really think you should go to the GP and ask for a referral for physio. Or go privately and have it sorted faster.

Obviously every child is different but my son was walking on his tentatively on the same day the cast came off. It came off in the morning and by the afternoon he was saying ‘look mummy I can jump’. He did need some pain relief in the first few weeks and it took a while to build up stamina and muscle again but I don’t think what you’ve described is typical, sounds like your DD needs some extra help to get things back to normal.