Anyone have an MRI done when toddler hurt their foot?

[Owachi]

My ds is 3. In mid December he was jumping on bubble wrap and fell and hurt his foot and couldn't walk. We saw an orthopedic surgeon that day (because of prior appt for something else). He put him in a walking boot and took x-rays and said to come back in 2 weeks. We did and they took more x-rays. He saw a little buckle (not sure if it was fracture or calcification).....we weaned him off the boot, an hour later he hurt it again and wore boot for 3 more weeks. Dr said his foot was fine...we weaned him off and he was perfect for 3 days and then woke up limping. 4 days now with the limp (we are wearing the boot again). They said they would do an MRI if he was limping after the last appt, which requires him to be put to sleep (he's already had 3 non-related surgeries and we don't want to have to do it again). My question is......after 6 weeks if they did see something on the MRI would they do anything besides put him in the boot again? Would you do the MRI or not? We are waiting for the dr to call back but last time it took 8 days to hear back. I want to know if anyone has done an MRI after several weeks and was it worth it? Did they actually do anything after the MRI? Thanks

[galincognito]

they might see something different on MRI versus x-ray because MRI is better for soft tissue structures (think tendons, ligaments) than bone (purpose of x-ray). sometimes these things show up on x-ray but it's really hard to see, if it shows up at all. so MRI can shed some light on different issues than an x-ray would.
i wonder if there's a different alternative to try before MRI? could a physical therapist assess? did the doc only take x-rays or did the doc also do a hands-on assessment to test for ligament stability, etc? those could be starting points before more radiation.
if other options are not identifying the problem and your little one still isn't walking, i would do the MRI. a kid refusing to walk is pretty indicative of something going on so i would want to know what we're dealing with so we can fix it.
hope this makes sense!