United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi Ellen
All the best to you and your son!
That is a technique on muscle transfer very advance, only possible with great doctors like you have (Bishop, …). Hope everything goes well. I have also full nerves avulsed, and that technique is a hope to get some movement. Give us some updates. Thanks
Paulo G

Sorry for the delay in responding - we were back at the Mayo Clinic last week for John's checkup & I hadn't checked this site in awhile. He got a good checkup & now in addition to passive movement physical therapy, John is "re-training" his brain to ultimately recognize that nerves formally located in his chest are now to fire arm, wrist & hand muscles.

Someone in an earlier post had asked about the location of the Mayo Clinic doctors we used (Bishop, Spinner, Shin): they're located at the Brachial Plexus Clinic in Rochester MN. Email me for more contact info if you'd like. Apparently these doctors are well respected; Discovery Channel contacted them to do a documentary on the Mayo Clinic (that segment will include my son's surgery & will be aired sometime this fall). At the end of this month, these doctors are also sponsoring a BP seminar & the faculty leading it are quite impressive (i.e. Kline & others).

Final note: I'm learning of more & more people who have thoroughly researched & then interviewed many well known BP doctors in the US, who have then ultimately chosen Mayo. I think a key reason for that selection is the team approach (so you have expertise in multiple disciplines that are inter-related to BP surgery.) In addition, the complexity of the work dictates long surgeries, & both of John's were around 10 hours for 3 doctors.

Good luck, everyone!

Ellen

heather, seeing that you are in Michigan, I would seriously consider the mayo clinic in rochester, MN. My brother had an injury (avulsed C56&7) just recently in which they had done a very complex surgery including a gricilis muscle transfer(one of the many thigh muscles, located on the inner thigh). They transferred the muscle to his bicepts area by attatching it to the collar bone down to the forarm area. This should give him elbow flexion as well as some wrist extension because of the way it is attatched to the forearm. They innervated the muscle by using two "live" intercostal nerves( from the ribcage area) and feeding it into the muscle transfer.
Of course we have not seen results yet since it has only been one month, we are keeping our fingers crossed.
Pre-surgery we had seen 6 BPI specialist across the country and back. We were most impressed with the mayo for several reasons- there are three specialist, Bishop, Spinner and Shin that work together,( as EllenB said earlier). We also felt that they are, at the moment, the most progressive team in the counrty. They have done there BP research at a world wide level. Also the mayo seemed to be one of the more organized facilities that I have been to and the nursing care was very good.
I'm looking forward to posting all what we've learned once we've had some more results.
feel free to call or email.
jessica j

Hi ,
If you want to know all about that, I have some pics about this surgery.
http://www.geocities.com/paulo_go/open.html

Bye
Paulo G

P.s. How are you, Scott ?