My DS (non-cfer) is a toe-walker. Honestly, I waited too long to seek help. When I mentioned it to our ex-pedi when DS was 8ish, ex-pedi said it was not a big deal. It was around that time that youngest DS and then later DD were born. Because of their health issues, I put the toe-walking on the back burner.
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After we switched family doctors, DS's new doctor sent him to an ortho around 11. The ortho did a neuro exam and diagnosed DS with "idiopathic toewalking" (no known cause), flat feet, double jointed toes, and a tight achilles tendon plus an extra growth plate in the foot. DS was fitted with RX orthotics for the flat feet and given a list of exercises to practice for the tendons/toewalking. He did practice the exercises and they helped, but DS still toe-walked. The following year, our doctor sent him to PT twice weekly for 3 months. That helped a lot. That said, DS is 17 and still does not walk normally. Since the PT, the toe-walking is much less pronounced. His right heel usually hits the ground when walking, but the left heel only touches when DS's concentrating on his walking. When he runs, neither heel touches the ground. It affects speed and agility. If I had it to do over again, I would have aggressively persued help when DS was closer to your DS's age.
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As far as causes, DS does not have a neurological cause. He saw a neuro for a year or so for chronic daily headaches. The neuro did a very thorough exam plus MRI for the headaches which also ruled out a neuro cause for the toewalking. As someone else said, kids with idiopathic toewalking do tend to have other fine motor issues. DS's handwriting is horrible - he's probably mildly dysgraphic. He was also a hand-flapper when he was younger but he's not autistic. He's just a very bright, compassionate, social kid with a few strange quirks.
My suggestion would be to bring it up to your pedi. He can probably decide whether your DS really needs a neuro exam. I'd think at your DS's age a quick consult and some exercises at home to stretch his tendons would be sufficient. I think if we'd started the exercises when DS was younger, we could have avoided the PT. Or, if you know a good PT, ask them to give you a list of exercises. With idiopathic toewalking, there is almost always tight tendons; therefore, just trying to break the habit with reminders does not work since there is a physical cause. Interestingly though, they haven't figured out the toe-walking causes the tight tendons or the tight tendons cause the toe-walking<hr>
HTH.
Mel
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Just out of curiosity, how do you create new paragraphs without making lines?? Neither enter nor ctrl enter work for me. It LOOKS like I have paragraphs until I post and then everything's ran together. Thanks.
