An aspiring dancer has put her dreams on hold after being diagnosed with a rare joint disease. Mia Oldroyd, 12, has been dancing since the age of four - beginning with ballet and tap, she now practices over 11 different types including jazz and contemporary.
Last year, Mia's hopes of becoming a professional dancer took a major hit when she was diagnosed with a rare disease. Starting as a pain in her left hip, she was soon walking with a limp.
As her symptoms worsened, Mia underwent an X-ray at her local A&E which was when she discovered the full extent of her condition. Mia was diagnosed with late-onset Pethes' disease, a rare joint condition that affects around one in 10,000 children.
Doctors told Mia she would need to stop dancing while they found a way to treat the condition. The disease usually affects children under 10, which is why Mia's condition is considered late-onset and because of this, some of the more common treatment options are not available to her, reports Yorkshire Live.
Perthes' disease causes part of the ball-and-socket hip joint to lose its blood supply, which eventually means that the bone will soften and begin to break down. The usual treatment for the condition is physiotherapy and the use of crutches, which allows the bone to regenerate on its own, but sometimes surgery is needed to repair the damage.
Due to Mia's age, she was told that she would need to have surgery to re-shape the bone around the hip joint. This meant that an external fixator also needed to be fitted to Mia's hip and the top of her leg.
Mia’s mum, Amanda, from East Lancashire said: "Mia wants to be a professional dancer, so I knew we had to get her the right care. I watched lectures and read lots of papers to try and work out what treatment she would need.
"At first I thought we’d have to visit a doctor I’d found in Portugal for the surgery, until I put a question in a Perthes’ disease group on Facebook. I asked if anyone had got an external fixator fitted in England and another parent replied to recommend Mr James Fernandes, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Sheffield Children's."
Mr Fernandes specialises in limb reconstruction at Sheffield Children's Hospital and children from across the UK come to the Hospital for its world-class paediatric limb reconstruction service. Mia first arrived in Sheffield to prepare for her surgery in November last year, before having the surgery the following month.
Mia had her external fixator fitted and this needed to be in place for four months, to relieve the pressure on the femoral head of her hip joint. This allowed for it to heal, and increased the blood supply to the hip.
Amanda said: "After the surgery we stayed on Ward 2 for six days. The staff at Sheffield Children’s couldn’t do enough and we felt like all the pressure and weight had been taken away.
"Even afterwards, I know I can give them a call if I have anything worrying me. Nothing is too much trouble for them."
Mia has since been recovering from her operation, coming to the hospital for check-ups, doing daily physiotherapy exercises and using crutches and a wheelchair to help her get around. And, much to her delight, Mia is dancing again.
With huge support from her teachers and fellow dancers at McLaren Dance Company, she has even been back at the studio adapting her dance routines using just the upper half of her body while sitting on a chair. Mia is having a second operation this week to remove the fixator, after which, the healing process can take up to two years. It is expected that she will eventually make a full recovery.
Amanda added: "A lot of people dismiss Mia’s dancing and don’t understand that it can be a career. But Mr Fernandes understood and listened to us – we showed him videos of Mia dancing and he showed us clips of people dancing in India after similar treatment."
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