Severs Disease in my gymnast daughter
My daughter will be 9 years old in April, and was diagnosed with Severs Disease at the end of January.
She is in competitive gymnastics.
She always wears Cheetahs on both feet when she works out.
When she tumbles, it takes only 1 wrong landing on her handspring to inflame her heel. When it is inflamed, she can’t even put it on the floor to walk on it, let alone do gymnastics.
It takes a good week of icing, stretching, and rest to get the inflamation down enough so that she can walk comfortably and participate in her favorite sport. Whether it’s inflamed or not, we ice it at least twice daily, and stretch the tendon 3 times daily.
She also wears Tuli’s heel cups in her shoes at all times.
Is there anything else we can do to try to minimize the inflamation and pain associated with this disease and still allow her to participate in her upcoming meets?Any help is appreciated.
1 Comment found
Shelly
My daughter has the exact same problem, she is also 9 years old. She has had a cast X2 since December. The Ortho we take her to said the Tuli cups don’t really work. She will be starting Physical Therapy next week. She had her first evaluation last week and the PT noticed that she is flat footed and her feet roll in. He gave her some shoe inserts for her to wear and my daughter says it has helped. She is restricted for PE and can’t run jump or tumble until she is pain free. Luckily she isn’t in competition season. When her growth plate fuses together it won’t bother her anymore, but like you I have to find something that will work for her until then. If you haven’t tried shoe inserts you might want to try them. Since I got them from a PT they are a little better than retail.