Bone age question

[Guest guest]

In preperation for the convention this summer I've just gotten the

first batch of Olivia's medical records and have been going through

them. I have a few questions since I was never told a lot of the

information that is in the records.

When she was 2 yrs. 1 month she had a bone age x-ray done and it

says--> chronological age-2yrs 1 mth

bone age - 6-9 months

2 standard deviations from the mean- 2-3 months

Does anyone know what this means? or is it just that she's small

so of course it would look like a younger baby is being x-rayed?

Thanks so much

Leah, mom to ash 9 non-rss and Olivia 4 yrs. 18#

[Guest guest]

This is a copy of a message I wrote here last May, explaining what

bone age is:

I can try to explain this as well as I can, based on what I learned

in school (I'm an Occupational Therapist) and what the doctors used

to tell my parents when I was growing up. If I make any mistakes,

PLEASE, someone correct me .

Most bones look like the bones you see on a Halloween skeleton...the

long part and then the " heads " on the 2 ends. The " neck " of the

bones (where the long parts and the heads meet) is the part that

actually grows as you get older (the long part can get thicker and

stronger, but the neck is where the " height/length " is achieved).

Obviously, the younger you are, the more growing you have to do. So

the very young have somewhat larger spaces between each " bone head "

to accomodate for the growth of the " necks. " How far apart

the " heads " are is considered the " bone age " ...the further apart

they are, the younger the bone age. The closer they are, the older

the bone age...until puberty, when the bones " seal " and there is no

more growth.

So if a 24-month-old has the bone age of 18 months, that's good

because it means he has the potential of an extra 6 months of growth

in him. When I was a kid, my bone age was usually 2 to 4 years

younger than my chronological age...so when I was 10, I had the

potential of continued growth of a 6-year-old. The problem was,

when I hit puberty (age 12), my bone age shot up something like 4

years in one year. So now instead of having the bone age of a 10-

year-old, it was of a 14-year-old. With that, my bones sealed and

there I was, at a whopping 4'6.75 " But BOY, am I cute .

I could be wrong, but I think that's why they like to delay puberty

with RSS kids nowadays...to get as much growth out of them as

possible before they stop growing.

-Sharon-

Just an RSS kid who grew up

4'6.75 " , 94# (no more fried Oreos for me!)

38 years old on Sunday (Geez I'm getting old!)

[Guest guest]

Leah - Virtually all RSS and short SGA children have delayed bone

ages. I recommend that you (and anyone else) go to MAGIC's website

and read the info the bone ages in the new SGA brochure that was

just posted. It gives good info about it and why the delayed bone

age is not predictive of final adult height later. For children who

were born NORMAL weight and length and later fall off, and a bone

age xray shows that their bone age is also delayed -- these children

often have constitutional growth delay. What this means is that

this child will suddenly grow a huge amount of inches, often in

puberty, and " catch up " to where they should have been.

This is NOT true with RSS/SGA children, so don't let any doctor

say " oh, good, he has a delayed bone age.... "

Jenn

> In preperation for the convention this summer I've just gotten

the

> first batch of Olivia's medical records and have been going

through

> them. I have a few questions since I was never told a lot of the

> information that is in the records.

> When she was 2 yrs. 1 month she had a bone age x-ray done and it

> says--> chronological age-2yrs 1 mth

> bone age - 6-9 months

> 2 standard deviations from the mean- 2-3 months

> Does anyone know what this means? or is it just that she's

small

> so of course it would look like a younger baby is being x-rayed?

>

> Thanks so much

>

> Leah, mom to ash 9 non-rss and Olivia 4 yrs. 18#