Moved from the Budget Board: Severs Disease of the foot...tips to help

[rapunzal]

My son has Severs Disease of the foot...this has to due with his growth and lack of flexibility in his tendons. He is a nine year old athlete. I am looking for new ideas you have tried for your child ....He has orthotics, been going to therapy ,etc. I stretch him real good before his practices/games...plays and then the moment he sits down he is limping again. Just recently he has been said his heel is starting to hurt again...so I started icing the heal again. I brought him Zensah calf support socks to keep him warm and loose. His tendons are so tight. The dr. said this could last until he is 16. My son never complains. Any tips would be great! Thanks

 

[eeyorethegreat]

I would try posting this over in the DISabilities forum you might get more response there. Good Luck!

 

[BibidiWannabe]

My 10 year old daughter just got diagnosed with this 2 weeks ago. She is a gymnast and on a competitive team. When I first heard of this it scared me since they called it a "disease" and it is not really a disease, more of a condition. The doctor pretty much told us to do what you have been doing with your son.... ice, heel cups, warm up and stretching exercises. It does help her if we ice and she does wear her heel cups regularly. But she does about 15 hours of gymnastics a week so it does hurt. I dunno what else to say or do.

I am thinking of investing in some nice quality running shoes with more cushioning and padding but the repetitive (same) exercise is what is making it hurt. What kind of sport does your son do? Over Christmas break she at least got to rest them for about 10 days but now we are back into practice and competition so we'll see. Let me know if you find out any other remedies.

 

[Psychodisney]

As a mom of two soccer players who had symptoms and a PT I'd recommend keeping up with the stretching of the calf and hamstrings. I like heel lifts better than heel cups. This helps to put a little slack on the achilles. Make sure you put the lift in both shoes even if only one side is painful. I like running shoes for the cushion, support and the position they put the foot in.
Other than lack of flexibility, the cause is the hard surface not allowing the ankle to move the way it needs to. So, for gymnastics your stuck-no cushion there. At least in soccer shoes or basketball shoes you can add some cushion and lift. Good luck..and keep stretching!

 

[BibidiWannabe]

I have not heard of heel lifts. I will need to research that and get some of those. Yes, you are right. With other sports you can at least have some support but with gymnastics, they do everything barefeet. My son had some symptoms too and he plays soccer. However now that it's winter, we haven't heard any complaints. Thanks for the tip!

 

[zachsmomie]

As a mom of two soccer players who had symptoms and a PT I'd recommend keeping up with the stretching of the calf and hamstrings. I like heel lifts better than heel cups. This helps to put a little slack on the achilles. Make sure you put the lift in both shoes even if only one side is painful. I like running shoes for the cushion, support and the position they put the foot in.
Other than lack of flexibility, the cause is the hard surface not allowing the ankle to move the way it needs to. So, for gymnastics your stuck-no cushion there. At least in soccer shoes or basketball shoes you can add some cushion and lift. Good luck..and keep stretching!

My son had Sever's last year and missed his whole Freshman lacrosse season. He had a major growth spurt in a period of 6-8 months and, from what I understand, his tendons didn't keep up with his his spurt. He was in terrible pain just from walking throughout the school day much less practice. We did the stretching, icing and heel lifts. The lifts seemed to help. We also got althetic inserts for his sneakers and got running shoes because the dr. said they would give better support. It was a LONG spring. Ultimately, we were told you just had to wait it out. Good luck!

 

[Anne34]

As a mom of two soccer players who had symptoms and a PT I'd recommend keeping up with the stretching of the calf and hamstrings. I like heel lifts better than heel cups. This helps to put a little slack on the achilles. Make sure you put the lift in both shoes even if only one side is painful. I like running shoes for the cushion, support and the position they put the foot in.
Other than lack of flexibility, the cause is the hard surface not allowing the ankle to move the way it needs to. So, for gymnastics your stuck-no cushion there. At least in soccer shoes or basketball shoes you can add some cushion and lift. Good luck..and keep stretching!

Another mom of a couple soccer players. My DS13 had this problem for a few years (as did most other boys on the team -- right around 11) -- it took about 1 1/2 years and he finally hit a growth spurt and it seems to have helped. He also used the Tully's heel cups all day long. We had one set in his gym shoes and another in his soccer shoes.

MY DD11 started this about age 9. She finally went to a pediatric podiatrist this past year since she was having lots of problems with her left foot. He took out the heel cups and made inserts for her shoes -- her whole foot was off. She has been much better with these.

Good luck waiting it out!

 

[longing2Batdisney]

I was working for an ortho at the time that my son as diagnosed. He has since out grown the condition. What seemed to work the best was not only ice, but our ortho suggested freezing coke bottles and rolling it with his feet for 15 - 20 min a day. This deemed to help him better then just icing as it strechted the muscles at the same time. Hope this helps -- it will get better usually a year.

 

[TALB]

We have been battling this over the last year. We have done heel lifts, heel cups, icing and xrays. Half of my sons football and basketball team players have all had this. Another parent told me about Oscon that she had ordered from the internet. I printed off the information and the ingredients and took it to our Doctor. He reviewed it and said that it wouldn't hurt him and to try it. I emailed the man that created it with some questions and he actually called me and I spoke to him for a half hour. He is a retired pharmacutical rep. His daughter was a gymnast and struggled with it and he created it for her. You buy a 30 day supply. Most of our friends have only needed a 30 day supply. We ended up needing 45 days. It's amazing but my sons heels are so much better. He was to the point that he could hardly walk on them and now he is fine. If he has a tournament and they start to bother him we ice and take the pills again for a few days and it takes care of the pain Just do a search for Oscon and it will come up. I swear the stuff works and it is all vitamins!! Good luck!!

 

[BibidiWannabe]

I was working for an ortho at the time that my son as diagnosed. He has since out grown the condition. What seemed to work the best was not only ice, but our ortho suggested freezing coke bottles and rolling it with his feet for 15 - 20 min a day. This deemed to help him better then just icing as it strechted the muscles at the same time. Hope this helps -- it will get better usually a year.

Can you explain the "rolling" part please? Do you mean putting the coke bottles on the floor and rolling them back and forth with the base of the foot?

 

[Psychodisney]

You can roll the bottom of the foot, the achilles and the calf..even the muschle on the front of the shin. It provides a different type of "stretch" in addition to the benefits of ice.

 

[rapunzal]

Glad to hear I am not the only parent going thru this. I brought Adidas Bounce Running Shoes for my son and put his new orthotics in it. Keep the tips coming! THanks

 

[tripletrouble]

I have triplet boys who are 9 years old. Last June, one of them started to complain about pain in his heels after coming home from soccer camp. At the time, he was going to soccer camp in the morning and tennis camp in the afternoon. He started walking on his toes because his heels were so painful! It became so painful that he had to miss a few days of camp. He chose to do this with the hopes that he'd be OK for football camp the following week. I took him to the podiatrist and he diagnosed the problem as Sever's Disease. He recommended rest, icing the heels and taking Ibubrofen. He also gave him heel lifts for his cleats(football and soccer) and sneakers.
The following week, he was able to go to football camp. There was a trainer on-site who recommended icing the feet before practice and then soaking his feet in a bathtub that was filled with ice-cold water when he came home from practice. This seemed to help.
My son made it through the fall season, playing both soccer and football, with little pain. He is now playing indoor soccer and just mentioned that he is starting to experience some slight pain. I realized though, that he doesn't have the heel lifts in his indoor soccer cleats.
I find it interesting that all 3 of my boys play the same sports, are very close to the same height and shoe size and only one of them has Sever's Disease.

 

[racingponies]

My son is 14 and grown about 6 inches in the last year. Last spring during baseball, he was disagnosed with Sever's and we did the traditional treatment of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Exercise) which is basically, breaks from the running, icing, heel cups or inserts and stretching. It didn't really help much and it finally went away in the summer when he was not playing so much anymore. He took the fall off from sports and then got on the freshman baseball team. MUCH tougher regimen and the pain came back with a vengeance. Since he wanted to play so bad, he would suck it up during the practices and act like he was fine and then limp the rest of the day. I've purchased different types of inserts, heel cups, an orthotic boot for him to wear at night to keep his tendon stretched, the Oscon supplement and Triple Flex. While he would tell me that it was a little better here and there, there really wasn't much significant relief. If he wasn't playing baseball for a few days, it was better and didn't hurt that much, but the second he started running again, he was back in full force. We've been really stressed the last 3 months trying to get him some relief. And we're pretty sure he's got a fair amount of growing left to do and I know this isn't supposed to really go away until then. Depressing.

But...there is good news! We recently discussed this with our local chiropractor who does chiropractic, sports medicine, physical therapy and massage therapy. He knew right away what I was talking about, asked where he was in the season and suggested a treatment. I've taken my son in 3 times in about a week and a half. The good news is that he says his heel feels pretty good now, better with the first treatment even and with this third one, he says he only notices a little pain. The bad news is that our insurance doesn't cover it unless he gets a referral from a doctor so you'd have to find a doctor who believes in the treatment. The sessions are $35 so they're not too expensive, but they can add up. Now that he's feeling some relief, we're going to shoot for going every other week and see if that holds him until the season is over.

The treatment is based on getting rid of the scar tissue. It was explained to me that scar tissue builds up between the tendon and the bone and causes significant pain because they're walking on it. The treatment consists of a stretching session manually from the sports therapist, then they use a metal tool thing to "massage" (it's really kind of a kneading) the heel to break up the scar tissue. (My son says he can hear it and it's kindof gross - LOL) Then they use an ultrasound "laser" to pull the deposits away and jump start the cells to "heal" (get the blood flowing probably). The whole process takes about 15 minutes and I can't believe the difference it has made for him when we have not been able to find anything to get him some relief for a long time. We were desperate to try anything to find something that works.

Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to share with other parents because I know how frustrated and helpless you feel when your child is hurting and you can't help. For those of you who are unable to manage the pain other ways, here's another thing to try.

Good luck!

 

[Cora]

My son was diagnosed with this at age 11, he is now 15 and still has periodic issues. We went to a Sports Podiatrist at Children's Boston. He was immediately put into a boot to reduce the stress off his heel. He was in a boot for about 2 months. Also, he had PT and has custom fit orthodics and wears them daily. We also purchased the Tulle Heel cups and use those in water shoes. Stretching is the best, however, he will take Advil before a game (if he is having issues) and we use Biofreeze on the heel. Therapeutic massage worked well to stretch the Achilles. The main thing is to keep the Achilles stretched.

 

[taximomfor4]

My almost 11yo dd was diagnosed with this a year ago. She's an Irish dancer. No other sports. The xrays a year ago showed the bones had cracked in BOTH heels before we caught it (the tendon pulling so much can do that). The podiatrist (whose specialty is sports med) made her some custom orthotics. He'd hoped they could go into her dance shoes, but they can't. Not in the hard shoes, or the soft shoes (there are 2 kinds of shoes in Irish dance).

It took a while, but the stretches he gave her, along with daily use of the orthotics, allowed her bones to heel and stretched the tight tendons. But every time she seems to grow a little, it comes right back. In fact, it got so tight the last time that her knee began popping out of place (subluxation). Off to PT next.

PT saw that dance over-developed her calf muscles, but her hamstrings were CRAZY tight. Her feet suddenly turn in (pigeon-toed, which has NEVER happened). He said all that is because the muscles should be evenly developed, to counter each others' pressure on joints. He worked with her for a while, then "graduated" her but she has a folder of exercises to keep doing.

Fast forward 5 weeks. Severs pain is coming back. Not bad, but coming back yet again. This past Monday, she did her Severs-relieving stretches, went into dance class, and came right out crying. Achilles pain. For the first time in her LIFE. YIKES.

Stinks. For Severs pain, they have her stretching the calf/hamstring/achilles. For achilles pain, the dr wants her to NOT stretch the achilles area for a while, to allow it to heal.

WTH can this poor child do???

Sorry so long. Just trying to show how it's all connected. And how frustrating management of Severs can be. I'd say that MOST active kids will get pain in the growth plate with growth spurts, until the tendons & muscles catch up. But I don't know that they ALL have Severs.

 

[clutter]

My dd was diagnosed when she was 10 and we've been fighting it on and off ever since.

With the initial diagnosis, the treatment was 2 weeks of no running no jumping. Worked like a charm. When it came back a year later, we did it again and it worked. This year, she's getting small flare-ups and she's got 6 more weeks of soccer. Grrr.

From what I gather, it 'flares up' when it becomes inflamed. Thus motrin does help a bit, as does ice. And the 2 weeks off gives it a chance for the inflammation to heal. I figure that at some point it will simply heal and not flare up again. But we've got a few years.