Generally speaking, there are a lot of theories and approaches for arthrogryposis or contracture treatment.
After praying for wisdom, reading lots of families' experiences on blogs, hearing of lots of treatment options, and observing Eva's progress over the last 8 months, our tentative plan is to not do surgeries until she's done growing.
Seriously. Avoiding the scalpel. We have a lot of reasons, the primary reason being that most young children who have corrective surgeries often have to have the same surgeries "redone" when they're older and done growing. Many children return to their original pre-surgery state as they grow and when the surgeries are "redone," they cut through scar tissue.
Our plan is not definite, it's more like our goal.
We took Eva to see a specialist in Kansas this week. Our game plan is to continue with therapies and eventually introduce Botox injections. We don't even have serial casting on the radar. Instead we're going to try AFOs (ankle/foot orthotics) with a built in wedge. This will help her to weight bear through her legs while protecting her plantar-flexed feet (ballerina). We also considered dynamic splints, but that's off the table for now, too. We do plan for a pan splint to protect Eva's wrists for when she weight-bears on her arms. Right now she's in wrist flexion (bent) and we'd rather have her wrists neutral and her digits protected for bearing weight.
One interesting thing that our specialist mentioned was that he thought Eva's diet was great and that she's proportional (which is what we thought). He said we need to really limit carbs (which is what we do). I'm trying not to gloat.
I'm excited to see how Eva continues to progress and to chronicle it all. Want to see her latest???