Mom of 4 year old, regarding FAB

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Hello parents,

I have a daughter who is 4 years old now and has been a patient of

Dr. Ponseti's since she was 5 months old. We live in Michigan and

started initial treatment directly after her birth with a very good

ped. ortho specialist at a very well known hospital. Unfortunately we

did not know that the Ponseti method still exsisted as we were

informed that it was outdated and not used anymore. We went forward

with treatment and our daughter recieved 10 below the knee casts and

was nowhere near fully corrected and schedualed for surgery sometime

between 10 months and 1 year of age. Fortunately we signed up for

internet service at the time that turned 5 months old as we

were waiting for her to be old enough for surgery and I stumbled onto

Dr. Ponseti's hospital website. I could'nt believe what I was reading

and stumbled again into a section called Parents testimonials. There

were stories about newborn babies that had been successfully

corrected at the hands of Dr. Ponseti but that the window of

oportunity was only about until age of 3 months. I scrolled down and

found one story of a little girl who had gone to see him who was six

months old and also had successful treatment. (Hi Rose!:-) )My

husband and I immediately wrote to Dr. Ponseti. He called us on the

phone the next day (Saturday!) and we were off to see him a few days

later.

was successfully corrected by Dr. Ponseti with 6 full leg casts

and a tenotomy to each heal. She has been in the FAB since she was

about 8 months old and continues to wear it today. She turned 4 in

February of this year and we thought that she would discontinue the

brace but it was decided that she stay in until she is almost 5. I

must mention that had been taken out of the brace right when

she turned 3, only 2 months later I noticed something " different " in

her feet, intoeing of some sort and I immediately called Dr. Ponseti.

He told me to put her back into the FAB after seeing some pictures

that I sent him. Only a day or two later and her feet were back to

normal.

I have always been so careful with 's FAB wear, doing exactly

what Dr. Ponseti prescribed. I have gone though unsuccessful

treatment and all the heartache that it brought and somehow luckily

only brushed against the relapse subject. I can't stress the

importance of the FAB (jeez, I keep wanting to type DBB, for those

out there who remember when it was called that! :-) )and I can't tell

you in all the years that it has been in 's life how easy it

really has been for , for our family. She never knew anything

else, and when the day came that she did know what it felt like to be

free from it and had to go back into it, she understood the

importance of it by that time at only age 3! She easily accepted the

brace again and continues to do very, very well with it.

has been fully potty trained since a month or so before the age

of 3(my older daughter without clubfoot trained at exactly the same

time) and has had no limitations because of wearing the brace. Now I

think that can easily be different for each individual child, just as

it can for children without clubfoot. Some helpful advice....I let

her be the boss of the potty, we did use pull ups for quite a long

time and I always make sure that she used the potty right before

getting into bed, even to this day, so she does'nt need to go in the

middle of the night. Some nights she still needs to go, all she does

is call me and I take her, but that is very rare. To all the new moms

and dads just starting out I know that 4 to 5 years of brace wear

seems like a lifetime, I remember feeling exactly the same way. It

was the only part of the Ponseti treatment that I did'nt love. But I

can't tell you how fast it has all gone and it has'nt slowed

down a bit, no one knows she had any problems what so ever unless I

tell them and then they are amazed. is in swim class, plays

soccor and is going into ballet in the fall as well as preschool. It

truly is a small price to pay for her fabulous feet! I have also

learned an incredible amount about clubfoot and all that goes with it

and I have a tremendous respect for the amazing FAB and all that it

has done to help 's feet remain perfect.

Holly and (bilateral born: Feb.11,2000 moderately severe)