massaging a child's tendons

[Guest guest]

Sally,

You said you noticed hammertoes starting. I would suggest massaging and

manually stretching the tendons in his toes two or three times a day. Gavin is

young enough that you might be able to slow down or maybe even prevent the

tightening of those tendons as well. I have seen pads that go under the ball of

the foot with elastic loops to go over the toes to keep the joints flat. You

might try that to keep the toe tendons stretched at night. Can he still wiggle

his toes? If so, encourage him to do so for a few minutes each day. Does he

have any footdrop yet?

My footdrop started at age 3 and by age 10 I lost all ability to get even the

faintest wiggle out of any of my toes. CMT slowed me down, but certainly did

not stop me from doing almost everything I wanted to do.

I am sure Gavin will do fine having you as his Mother.

Ruth