Outcome of Holly Jean's first visit to local orthopedist--wait and see

[Guest guest]

We took Holly (7 months, 36* curve to the right recently

identified on xray) to a local orthopedist today to get an

assessment of her condition. Even though Dr. Khoury looked at her

xrays and said she has a progressive form and needed casting, we

wanted to have someone look at her here. 1) to make sure that she

is generally healthy and 2) to find a local doc who could support

her care.

He said it does not look like she has much rotation (although he

agreed the xray was fuzzy) and that we should wait and see what

happens. He said that 85% of cases of IS get better without

treatment. He said to come back in 3-4 months to see how she is

doing then. He also mentioned a whole bunch of other things about

braces and surgeries, but told us not to get alarmed by what we

might have read about IS. He said we were the 3rd case of IS he had

seen just today and only about 10% of his patients ever need

treatment.

Then I pressed him about predictors. I mentioned some predictors

that i felt were not in her favor (gender, direction of curve,

degree of curve). I also asked him about the RVAD score. It seemed

as though he has heard of it, but couldn't or didn't measure it.

He just didn't want to talk about how to refine general predictions

based on important predictor variables.

When i asked about casting, he said that casting was a old procedure

that has " come back " . But he implied that he didn't believe it was

warranted. Later on he mentioned a surgical procedure involving the

ribs that he said was invented by the Chief at Shriners Hospital

(who he used to work with). Ironically, he was referring to Dr.

Sturm. When i mentioned that Dr. Sturm did early intervention with

casting, he flat out said he disagreed.

OK, so i guess this is not our doc. We still plan to go to

Birmingham to for consult and casting with Dr. Khoury. But this

meeting did add some level of uncertainty, as this doc was fairly

certain that she would get better without treatment.

He also said she doesn't need an MRI.

I realize this is a select group and maybe all of the " wait and see "

kiddos who had positive outcomes wouldn't have parents talking about

casting right now. But how do you decide what to do?

Waiting and seeing seems scary. Putting a child through unnecessary

medical procedures is scary.

sorry for the long post.

(mom to Holly 7 months)