United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

My daughter is 7 years old and had 3 surgeries at TCH. The last surgery was the Pronator Teres Transfer. Today I had her local doctor to x-ray her elbow because here lately was has been complaining of elbow pain. She can straighten the arm out more with the help of her other arm which will make it pop, then she says it feels better. What the X-ray showed was a dislocated Radial Head. Has anyone had this problem and what do they do about it?

My daughter has this and actually I know exactly when it happened - her PT was pushing her in weightbearing without her air splint on and it put too much pressure on her elbow. It dislocated and she was in pain and they iced it. We got it xrayed and the xray tech was really upset that my daughter couldn't put her arm all the way down on the xray 'slide' - I tried to explain an elbow contracture but she just didn't want to hear it. After seeing the xray, Dr. Nath said that there was nothing that could really be done unless the pain was such that it was bad all the time, then they would shave off the radial head. I know an older boy that had this done when it pained him too much and he did ok. We also learned that pushing supination too much could cause this kind of dislocation. Every child is different so your doc should evaluate your child. What I say about my child might not be the same for yours. Hope you get it figured out soon and that the pain decreases fast.

We have gotten several opinions about Blake's dislocated radial head from Dr. Nath, Dr. Davino(ortho) as well as our local doctors. They all say the same thing, they can't really do anything for it till he is a teen and stops growing and like null said, they said they can shave it. It is very prominent but doesn't cause him any pain. He broke his wrist in the fall, but didn't complain of any pain when that happened so I don't know that we know exactly when or how the radial head was dislocated.