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Riding horses

pepperann26
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I wanted to let you know that riding horses is a good thing to strengthen leg muscles. Its what helped me to walk.
I was born with mild cerebral palsy, I am 27 years old now

Explore topics in this discussion:

Surgery Spasticity Cerebral palsy

12 replies

twinsmama

How was it growing up with CP? My daughter is 2 and is walking well but she has a bad scissor gate especially with her left leg. She is super smart and wants to do everything, but her slow walking is holding her back. I keep encouraging her but I feel so frustrated with the AFOs. Did you wear them your whole life? when did you start riding horses? any insight you have would be really helpful for us. we want to raise Maile to be the best person she can be.

forme3376

Don't put your child with CP in a box. I have mild to moderate CP. I have done everything I have ever wanted to do. Do know your child's limits, but don't let that stop them from being their best.

llsg

Please share more of your story! My daughter is 3 and I have her riding horses once a week. She has spasticity in her rt. calf. Any info/advice you can share would be hugely appreciated. Her PT has mentioned a heel cord release. I am hesitant to do that yet. I do not know any adults w/CP who could describe some of what they have gone through. I want to help my child, most of the time I feel I am in dark and I have to find my own way. Your input would be great to hear.

socsmurf

When did they say they wanted to do the release? I was told for my son he would have to be 5 or older. They have mentioned botox.... YUCK. He is riding once a week at personal ponies.

llsg

Her PT was discussing surgery now. I have not yet consulted w/a Dr. I think I might look into finding a spasticity clinic to get more input.

KanesMom

My 4 year old son who has CP and cannot walk unassisted was evaluated by an orthapedist last summer for the possiblity of the heel cord surgery. His spasicity keeps his toes pointed most of the time without the AFOs however, he is able to relax them at times. The doctor said that since he has "some" range and ability to move the ankle / foot that we should probably wait a little longer since he was so young. He said that if yo do it this young and then they hit a large growth spurt in a couple of years, it may have to be repeated and that it is pretty painful.

GavinsMama

There is a therapeutic horse riding ranch very near where we live. I really wish we could afford to take our son ,who is 2 w/ spastic diplegic CP there. Anyone have any ideas about how to raise awareness about the ranch so maybe more funding will be available in the future,so more children will be able to go?
Here is a link to the ranch:

http://www.newhorizonranch.org/index.html

shae21

they say children with cerebral pausy its good for them to be around animals its calming to them they also like diffrent textures like diffrent hard to softs if you put a soft thing in your childs hand then take that out of their hand and put some thing cold or warm they can tell even if they cant speak they know my daughter does riding for the disabled and she loves it just the contact with animals she just knows theese children are special they have there own way of comunicating with the parrents

Mylittleprincess

Thanks this is really good advice we recently found out in April of 08 that my daughter had mild CP that only affects her right side of the brain, she also has spastic CP she toe walks, it's getting better, but she turns her hips a lot when she tries to run, she just does a fast walk, and it's so hard to see her like that because i have a 1 year old that's already running and she can't keep up with him, but she is really smart the only problem is that she doesn't talk very well so she can't always say what she wants, she also wants to do everything, but when I found out she had CP i put her in a little cage and would tell her not too, just recently i've been letting her go to her grandparents, they have a ranch, i wouldn't let her go because it's gravel and she would fall alot and i hate seeing her ger hurt, so i put her AFO's and she goes with them and she is doing a lot better, but i didn't know that it was the horse ridding i thought it was her PT they've recently changed her to aquatics, She's also started to go to school again for this year so she's really happy and to her she's just the same as the other kids, she doesn't stare at other kids like when we go to the hospital she just plays with them and even if they are bigger than her she will still call them baby's I love my princess soooo much I wouldn't trade her for the world. Let me know if there are other things I can do to make it easier for her to do things or that will help her because i really don't want to put her through botox or surgery, just e-mail me or send me a message with the info thanks and i appreciate it a lot.

pepperann26

just know that doctors don't always know, my parents were told I would never walk and never talk......they were wrong! Before I actually talked, I learned sign language so you might try that. The horse riding actually uses muscles in your legs that you don't use all the time so that's why it works so well.
If you want to know more about me or my life, feel free to ask! :0)

twinsmama

we've had my daugher, Maile up on a horse a few times now and she loves it! She has very mild CP, affecting only her legs. She's not wearing AFOs now, but she does get botox every 3-4 months. It is amazing how much stronger she gets with the botox. Her overall gait has improved. It's a slow process but it's moving ahead. We are also trying gymnastics this fall. I know she will get tired during the class but her instructors are awesome and can work with her. The docs say eventually we will need night AFOs to help stretch, but the daily stretching and activities we are doing are enough now to keep her looser. Good luck to everyone out there. Please keep sharing!

ayimikhim

Hi, I attend the Glenn Doman programm and I rise Botox question to them. For their advice is........if the child is having severe spastic and cp..... Botox is not encourage. Just like if we go for Botox on our face, after few month if we don't do it we will like more ugly. So if doctor advice for Botox, pls check for more details before you go for the treatment.

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