That’s the question we get again and again when we talk about IT Boy and his hypotonic condition.  Hypotonia is a condition, not a disease and as such, can be caused by hundreds of things, most of them too horrible to make you want to continue doing your research on Web MD.  We’re addressing his issues with many and varied therapies, and he has made progress, but not as much as anyone would like to see.  No pediatrician, therapist or specialist has implied that there is any reason to believe that he has anything more than a delay, but still, we’re left to wonder.

I subscribe to a Hypotonia message board and there is one common theme among all the parents who post there.  It boils down to “my kid has this thing, and I don’t know why.”  Some parents have a diagnosis of autism or CP or various muscular distrophies, but most don’t.  Many go through batteries of tests, ranging from simple blood tests to more invasive muscle biopsies to try and get a true diagnosis.  Some get one, some do not, and on they go. 

I had been content for a long time to go this route, but we recently made an appointment for him with a Pedatric Clinical Genetics specialist.  If there is something to this condition that can be addressed, great.  If he has something else that we can’t do anything about anyhow and have to let the therapies take their course, so be it.  At least we’ll know, and as a parent, I can’t help but ask.