Late last fall, my DD started saying her ankle was hurting. I took her to an orthopedic doctor who was highly recommended by multiple people. He did some x-rays, didn't see anything, so he said it was most likely tendinitis, told us to rest it, ice it, and stretch it. We did those things and it quit hurting, so she went back to her usual activity. It has recently started hurting again, and I just kind of had a gut feeling I needed to take her to a different doctor. I found out the children's hospital in our city has a sports medicine clinic, so I took her there today. He was extremely thorough in his examination, then asked if he could do some x-rays because he felt something in there that concerned him. On the x-rays, he showed us that a tiny bit of bone had chipped off the bone in her ankle, and that is what has been causing the problems. The other doctor had just completely missed that. She is to wear an ankle support, cut her gymnastics activity back by 50% for now, and no tumbling, vaulting, or dismounts. He wants her to do physical therapy twice a week for eight weeks to try to build some more muscle in her ankles, in hopes that it will kind of "cushion" that bone fragment so it won't bother her anymore. He wants to see her back in three weeks to see how she is doing and discuss slowly getting back to her normal activity level. I broke the news to her coaches this afternoon and they were NOT happy. Not upset with her or us, but just not happy that she won't get full training for several weeks.....they were just telling me a couple of weeks ago that they have very high hopes for her once meet season starts in August. I guess if this had to happen, it's good that it happened now, rather than in a few weeks when they are learning the new routines. I wasn't able to stay for practice today, but she said she did bars and mostly just conditioned other than that. I am just praying that this heals quickly and doesn't cause any more problems in the future!
