United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

ok here it is Our daughter Angelina was (sept.02)born with right arm BP she has had one surgury in 2003
they scraped the nerve and put it back together.
She has had wonderful therpy in and out of the water 2 times a week since, but still can not move her arm out wards or up. We seen her surgen about this in June 2005 but was told to wait it out should get better.
we moved to FL last fall. She still has wonderful therapy in and out of water but they really don't know much about it. anyway Angel still seems to be in the same place she was before. It's not been a big deal to anyone else due to she adapts to everything so well.
So any ideas to anything we can do to help her? Should we take her back up to MO for another check up with her BPI dr. ? What surgerys are open to us ? if any?
Or should we wait it out? PLEASE we want to hear ALL ideas and opions?? What did you do? or would do?
THANKS for your time

go to
drnathbrachialplexus.com

and click on surgeries, muscle and modquad FAQS, this may help you, my son had this done 6 years ago and it helped his overhead movement

dr grossman is in miami. i would check him out. his OT. lorna is very good but a bit harsh

If you are in south flordia you should see Dr. Grossman in Miami....maybe he could be of some help.

Are you going to St. Louis Children's? Our daughter had nerve graft surgery there. It is a different doc. that does the secondary surgery. They are pretty conservative and like to wait and see. Our persoanl decision was to get other opinions. Our daughter had the nerve graft surgery at 1 yr of age with good results, but she still had limitations reaching over her head, extention and suppination. She had MOdquad done with Dr. Shenaq who was at Texas Childrens at he time. We have been really pleased with the out come. Every injury is different and your personal comfort level with surgical intervention may be different than ours. We went with St. Louis origianally because we felt more comfortable with the conservative apparch when our daughter was younger because we were so overwelmed with the injury and heard so many conflicting opinions for local doctors in our rural Indiana area who were far from experts. It never hurts to get a second opinion. We are now seeing the doctors in Cinncinati due to our family moving. We are really happy with them. Just because you get another opinion doesn't mean you have to commit to that doctor. Good luck.

We also were seeing Dr. Park in St. Louis. My daughter did not need primary surgery, but could not get her arm all the way up or to the side. We took her to Dr. Nath and Dr. Waters in Boston. We found that her shoulder was dislocated because of the growth from the injury. She had surgery in Boston in February and is doing wonderful since. She just turned one year old and is finally able to crawl and sit on her own. if you have any questions please feel free to email me.

Kim - (Ashley 1 Yr ROBPI)

Angelsmom:
we have a wonderful medical resources page on this website. i encourage you to look at it and contact some other doctors. you might come to the same conclusions, but this injury is a complicated one, and there are many opinions on how to treat.

the docs have answered a questionaire, and have phone numbers and email addresses. many will accept videos for the first view.

good luck,
claudia

Thank you all so much this will help us in makeing some major choices. Again thanks