Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi My name is Gareth my wife 's name is Tammy, our son, Brett was

born on 14/01/2004 with moderate to severe BL CF. I have been

watching this site for a couple of months and have finally worked up

the courage to introduce myself. We are from South Africa and have a

4 year old daughter aswell.

Brett was also born with a very small cleft pallet which at the time

worried us more than the feet as my sister was born with club feet 27

years ago. In those days there was one Dr in our country who did not

operate on club feet unless casting did not work. All the other Dr's

wanted to operate, needless to say my sister has played all sorts of

sport at a high level even playing for a men's roller hockey side. So

with this in mind we set off to see her Dr who was still practising,

I looked on the internet for information and found the Ponseti

method. My wife and I decided before we went in that if he mentioned

surgery we would get a second opinion. We went in and he explained

that he would cast for 4 months, may need a tenotomy and will need to

wear the FAB. We left feeling very happy and excited

The next visit I asked the Dr about Dr Ponseti and he was impressed

that I knew quite a bit, he also told us that he was in contact with

Dr P as you all call him. his feet started to look better and week

after week we went back to be re-casted. About 5 weeks into that

castings I found a South African web site http:\\www.clubfoot.co.za

which has been designed by a lady who you all know quite well,

Moss. On the website I read that there were no Ponseti trained Dr's

in SA pre 2003, I straight away e-mailed her the story about the Dr

who had fixed my sisters feet and that we were seen him. She replied

immediately and in a round about way told us that he had been 's

firs Dr and that he may be doing the Ponseti method but he is

modifying it. I looked at the checklist on her website and 2 things

stood out, castings should be 4-6 maybe 8 if needed and the Dr should

have an assistant to cast while he holds the foot. Our Dr said 4

months of casts +- 16, he also did the casting himself. We went to

visit and Steve and met , we watched a tape that showed Dr

Ponseti working on babies feet. Once my wife was convinced that our

Dr was doing the wrong thing we asked him if we can see another Dr

and he was very good about the whole thing and referred us to Dr Mark

Eltrigham who has studied with Dr Hartzenburg, also highly

recommended him as there are only 2 Dr's in South Africa who have had

training in the P method. (the more I research the more I can see

that my Sister was one of the very lucky 50% that did not need

surgery in those days)

We had three cast and what a difference! The three casts had

corrected both feet to 70 degrees, even after 7 casts with the first

Dr he was saying that the one foot would need to be operated on.

Brett had his Tenotomy on Friday 23rd April and Tomorrow we go into

the FAB and he can have a proper bath again....he loves his baths,

after seen all the posts and been watching for that last month I need

to say that the information that you all share, you will never find

in a book, it is undoubtedly the most priceless information anyone

going through this, can get. I thought that I would share our story

as It may help someone els and also to say thank you to each and

every one of you for all the tips and information.

Gareth and Brett