Dennis Brown Bar for Clubfoot

If you've been following for awhile, you've gotten to read the intermittent updates on Finley's foot. (After reading the updates myself, I realized I have far too few pictures of his foot and the stages of healing he went though... sad!) He was born with one clubfoot and had many casts and one surgery to correct it.  (Baby casts are darling.)  He's been wearing a little brace to sleep in and help the foot not relapse.  At the last appointment, I was a little concerned that it wasn't fully corrected--sometimes he would walk or stand with his foot not totally flat in the floor and he would hold it tilted in sometimes.  I asked the doctor if he needed a more serious brace.  The doctor said to come back in a few months and see how it was doing... but I asked for the brace now.  Our original brace was a little over $300 and luckily, this one was only $100.

But it's a little sad looking.  It consists of two lace up shoes that are attached by a bar.  The affected foot looks like the shoe is on the wrong foot--it curves in the "wrong" direction.  It's also set out at a 30 degree angle.  The other shoe is straight.



He is supposed to sleep in it at night.  We've successfully made it through the night three nights out of the past few weeks.  He doesn't mind putting the brace on or wearing it, he kind of giggles and thinks its funny.  Sometimes we stand him up on it and he looks like a little snowboarder.

He goes to sleep in it pretty well.  He normally does a little bit of yelling before he gives in and sleeps--but I think with the brace he goes right to sleep because he can't stand up.  Our sleep problem is that he wakes up around midnight every night and doesn't want to go back to sleep.  We've had a little success picking him up and comforting him, then laying him back down.  I'm not sure what sleep gurus would say about that... but at least he's sleeping and wearing the brace!



We're going to go have him checked out again soon--I'm not sure how long he needs to wear it (the official Ponseti Method website says until he is FOUR... yikes!).  It's not the coziest and makes me a little sad for him.  But it would be even sadder if his foot didn't develop normally and he had trouble running marathons later on.  And it will look really cool bronzed beside his other baby shoes!