United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Is there anyone out there who had botox or nerve transfers for baby under 1 year.?What was the result?my 10 month old does not have any biceps function against gravity and the doctor gave us the option of doing botox or a nerve transfer. I am so confused and i want to take the right decision. are there any complications to nerve transfers? loss of function?I'll take any help
thanks

I am no specialist so please take this as just my own opinion but I thought that there was a time-limit on when you could do nerve surgery and I thought they recommened it be done by age 1yr. I am afraid if you try the botox and it doesnt work, you would be past the time limit for the surgery. Please get another opinion ASAP if you haven't done so already. I have never heard of doing either nerve surgery OR botox.

My daughter had nerve surgery at a year old; it's not the optimal time frame, but it did help her function.
I suppose it all depends on the extent of the injury and what you may gain.
Talk to several specialists and make an informed decision.

Peggy

My daughter had nerve graft the week of her first birthday. She did not have any signifigant loss of funtion. With surgery you always have the risks involved with anestetic (ok I can't spell, the stuff they use to put you to sleep) and possiblity of infection. Botox was not ever given as an option. Maybe your Dr. has explained this to you, but I am a little confused. With nerve graft or transfer you are trying to get nerve stimulation to an area that is not currently reciving messages telling the muscles to move. With botox you are weakening muscles that over power weaker ones. I am not following the reasoning of why it would be botox or transfer. Bicep function has continued to be an issue for us so I'd really like to know what the reasoning is. Are they wanting to try botox to see if there is a signal getting through, but it seems like they would just do an EMG test for that? The time gude line for doing surgery by one year of age is for you to get the best results. The way it was explained to me is that with the nerve graft they are actually gafting the membrane that holds the nerve and the nerve regenrates or grows through it (picture sliding a string through a drinking straw) The nerve grows at a rate of a cm a month. The problem is that the older the child the farther it has to grow. If muscles go into atrophy in the mean time, it won't matter if the nerve signal gets to them, they won't beable to use that signal to move.

I'm so sorry that I cannot use my name, but for the legal stuff it just scares me too much.

Absolutely, get some more opinions. There are quite a few doctors who will evaluate your baby by video.

Our baby also had no biceps at 1 year, although the dr. is confident that it is just because his tricep is so much stronger than the bicep. So, it was recommended to use botox to weaken the triceps to then give the biceps a chance to get stronger. (we haven't done the botox yet).

But I agree with the other post, that I think this is completely different than why you would do a nerve transfer so please talk to another doctor.