Low muscle tone: Chopping wood, mountain bikes and swimming

by Wendy
(Cape Town)

Strange combination, I know, but that is what helped my son with his low muscle tone.

During the ages of 8 and 13 months my son had 5 operations on his throat area. This resulted in the removal of his hyoid bone. This little bone supports all the muscles in the upper chest and throat, even his tongue and inner ear were affected by the removal.

The specialists told us he would need OT and speech therapy as well as physio for all his primary school years. We spent about 2 years on this from 2 - 4.

When he was able to swallow without choking, talk without a heavy tongue, we introduced our own work for him to build his upper body strength.

Age appropriately he started chopping wood, taking wonderful MTB rides and team swimming. Today at 13 he rock climbs, is super strong and swims league.

Just sharing our victory over such a seemingly hopeless situation.