When Matthew was a baby (before he was
diagnosed with agenesis of the corpus
callosum) the doctor wrote in his chart
notes that he was "floppy." I didn't
discover this until I made the choice to
change pediatricians and I got a copy of
Matthew's chart notes. I later learned
that "floppy" also means low tone.
Then Matthew was diagnosed with ACC when
he was four months old via a CT scan.
Matthew was very low tone as a baby and
toddler and a little guy. He had very
little strength in his muscles to do
what most little babies and toddlers
can easily do.
I can remember wondering if Matthew would
ever gain more strength in his muscles and
I worried that he may struggle with
low tone without significant improvement.
When I would change his diapers at an
age where most babies would wiggle and
squirm and struggle to get away, Matthew
would move only a little bit and I could
easily keep him where I needed him to be
because he didn't have the strength to
get away.
As I was sitting at the computer today
that once little guy (who will always be
little in my eyes) stood next to me and
I was playing a tickle game with him. I
reached out both of my arms at him with
wiggly tickle fingers and began to sing
a silly song about "Now I'm gonna tic..."
and those two little boy hands grabbed my
own arms and prevented me from tickling
him while he was laughing at our little
game.
He is already stronger than me and definitely
is no longer that "floppy" and low tone
little guy I once worried about.
Now it's the other way around. I feel like
a little girl up against my own very sweet
and super silly BIG boy.
Hi Sandie,
ReplyDeleteJoel was described as "low tone" too at birth and was "floppy" feeling in his upper arms and chest...........for awhile! Now he's 9 months old and just try to get a diaper on him without him flipping over and trying to escape! He still does not hold onto you when you are holding him in your arms (balancing him on one hip) but he is getting stronger and stronger and is trying to pull up and is on hands and kees "rocking" and ready to crawl. So "low tone" at birth or as an infant doesn't mean "low tone" forever as you found with your own Matthew!
Hello ladies, I feel where you are coming from on this. Brianna was diagnosed is diagnosed as low muscle tone and is a little floppy. She is improving though now at almost 22 months has started crawling and pulling herself up on the sofa and other furniture horray for our kids building those muscles!
ReplyDeletewow thats wonderful for brianna, my erin now nearly 10months old is still having problems. She is low toned in all her body and high toned in her legs cerebl palsy has now been diagnosed which we are treating with physio. Her arms dont seem to have any life in them, at all and if you place something in her hand she still does not realise it is there. :( I am hoping from what you have all said that this will change in hte future and sems erin is working at her own pace at the mo. On the up side though the Bee chair that she has (now for a couple of months) Has done wonders for the tone in her neck. She was never able to hold her head at all up till now. NOW though she is still occasionally floppy but is holding her head all on her own and turning towards noises which is great :) We are now waiting on her eye test results with fingerscrossed we have been waiting nearly 6 weeks now and frustrating to say the least. Thankyou all for sharing this info it is giving me lots of positive thoughts !!!
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