We took my daughter to see a doctor today based on continued behavior she's displayed with her left leg. She's been limping and favoring it and sometimes even resorting to a crawl in order to avoid it since Thursday. We don't know what the inciting event was and she's vague when we try to find out where the pain exactly is, but she's definitely bothered by it.
In general, I don't rush to a doctor the first moment I think something might be wrong. Children fall down all the time and there are always things that hurt them, but usually not for long. We watched her and noticed it would come and go. Not coincidentally, it would come and go with the doses of ibuprofen or tylenol we gave her to help with the fever she had been having.
Her pediatrician looked at it yesterday while she was diagnosing her with strep throat, and said she wasn't sure it was anything to worry about but if it didn't get better to have it looked at. Then, this morning, I did some prodding on her lower leg to find out just where the problem was. I had suspected a sprained ankle, but when I pushed on the bone, higher up above the ankle, she screamed.
Strange. That's not a sprained ankle. She didn't want to walk then either. I looked at the orthopedic clinic near us and found they didn't have Sunday clinic hours so we would wait until Monday. Later in the day we realized scheduling on Monday was going to be challenging and we weren't sure if school would want her in with a possible broken leg so we looked further and found an urgent care with pediatrics and x-ray capabilities that was open until eight o'clock.
I took my daughter at dinner time, was whisked right in and the doctor came in in short order to examine her. He thinks its a strained Achilles tendon and didn't think she needed an x-ray. He told me to give her Motrin every six to eight hours for several days and hopefully she'll be better then.
I got to thinking, doctors invariably seem to recommend "Motrin" and not "Advil" or "Ibuprofen" and I don't know why. Advil and Motrin are brand names for Ibuprofen, but I can't for the life of me remember seeing rows and rows of Motrin on the shelves at the store. I see lots of Advil and generic, Advil-colored boxes for Ibuprofen. From a consumer standpoint, Advil seems far more prevalent than Motrin. I'm going to ask my neighbor, who is a doctor, if she can shed any light on the whole Motrin recommendation situation.
So, good news on my daughter's leg.
The Big Boy Update: I was getting the children's bedroom and beds ready tonight when I found the, "Darnit Doll" in my son's bed. My neighbor gave me this doll—which is really a "Damnit Doll"—to hit things with when I was angry and wanted to swear. It stays in a specific place on the book shelves but my children know about it and they can use it if they want. When I asked my son about the Darnit Doll being in his bed he said, "I was feeling very angry."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Strained Achilles tendon. We saw a doctor today about my daughter's leg limp. He thinks it's just a sprain and she'll be fine in short order. We're giving her ibuprofen for a few days to help with the discomfort.
Fitness Update: Fourteen miles. Four walking with my husband and ten running with my neighbor. We thought we were going to get caught in the tropical storm, but got in just as it was starting to lightly rain.
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