United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

My son aquired a BPI at birth. At four months old he had an EMG done. They tried to perform the test without sedation. My son did not make it through the first minute of the test. I rescheduled the test to be performed under sedation. I noticed that someone had suggested Emla cream. I was told that it affects the sensory part of the nerve test and doesn't allow for a accurate reading. On the other hand, the sedation can affect the spontaneous reaction part of the muscle study. There are good and bad points to being sedated, but if they are sedated they are more relaxed. It still hurts them, and they are less sedated during the needle study. They use acupuncture type needles to determine certain types of reactions. Honestly, the only reason I had this done was to find out if my son had any severed nerves. Thank God he doesn't, but he has severe damage. So the EMG did give me some helpful info, but I had to know whether or not to explore my options with surgery. Goffee24

My son had his first EMG done at his FIRST month. Doctors wanted to find out how severe was the injury. The results showed that he had severe injury, possibly avulsion since they did not get much signals.

When he was 3 months old, Dr. Nath from Texas wanted our doctor to do another EMG to determine whether he needs primary surgery. Another one was done. The second EMG showed much better result, since he began to move his arm in his second month.

Our advise is that if you are doing to do the EMG, insist to go with your child, so that you will be there to comfort him. The child will only feel the pain when receiving electrical current. For the first EMG, doctor and nurse told us to wait outside. For the second time, we insisted that we wanted to go in. If my child has to go through this, I guess we could be there to comfort him. The only reason to let the parents to stay outside is that it may be too hard on parents.

In short, stay by the side of your child during the EMG and provide comfort and support. It made a difference for our son. Doctors were too busy doing the test than comforting. After the EMG, my son did not seem to be in pain.

Good luck!

Jenny

Heather, we had a emg done when Michaela was 7 months old. We were told by our insurance company that it had to be done before they would even consider the primary surgery she needed. If it weren't for the fact that it helped get the surgery approved, I wouldn't do it again. Part of the reason is in my case the so called doctor was a jerk, and didn't have his things prepared. After the first 2 sticks Michaela was throwing a tantrum and his machine quit working so I had to come back the next day. After he was done this "professional pediatric neurologist" told me she might as well have her arm amputated because she'd never have any use of it. She would get more use out of a prosthesis were his exact words.
Fortunately, her ortho knew how to do the intercostal nerve grafts. Our insurance company at the time made us also go through a mylegram where she had to be put to sleep before they approved the surgery. This is so stupid on the part of the insurance companies, delaying treatment by demanding more tests,especially since until the doctors go inside and do the emg during surgery they're really only guessing at the damage,but as stated above that's generally enough to tell.We finally got it done at 11months and 3 weeks.She came home from the hospital on her first birthday.

In the end I had to put Michaela through the emg again at the age of 4 and 3 months to help get the insurance company to approve the Mod Quad. Unfortunately, we had to go to the same doctor. I reminded him of his statements and he said he remembered and he was surprised that she had gotten so much hand and upper arm function.Now he wants to see her after the Mod quad, not to do an emg just to assess how much she's gained. I agreed to just so he'd have the info to help someone else and not tell them to amputate.

Anyway, so unless your insurance company is demanding it be done I wouldn't put your child through an emg. That's my personal opinion.In the end you must do what you think is the best thing to do for your child.LeeAnne

Lee Anne - I hope that you can educate this doctor. Print off some journal articles... get him a copy of the Outreach Awareness Special Issue or print some of the awareness documents off the web OR even invite him to a picnic somewhere so that he can see the kids himself. This man needs to update his knowledge base! What a travesty! How many parents has he told this to you think?

Disgusting!

Hi Heather - my daughter had an EMG when she was 2 months old. They didn't sedate her. I expected it to be awful for her, and spent the 2 hour drive to the hospital working myself up about it. However, the nurse told me that she did very well and didn't find it too painful. Since I couldn't go in with her (I had my son with me too), I have to take the nurse's word for it, but when I saw Emma just after the test, she wasn't crying. I'm sure it was unpleasant for her, but I hope it wasn't as bad as I had envisioned.

I hope it goes well for your daughter.

Good luck!
Sarah

Rosalynn had an EMG done when she was about 101/2 mo. There were several people in the room. (Doctor, nurse and some med students) It was crowded, she was in pain and it was very difficult (emotionally and literally) for mom and dad to hold her down while they did it. It was over quick and no lingering signs of pain. The only problem is that since then she freaks at the sight of people in white coats. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but I do thing it was tramtic for her because of her reaction know.