United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

My daughter is 6 weeks old and was diagnosed with a brachial plexus injury and phrenic nerve injury at one week. She saw an OT in the hospital and will be seeing a therapist at our local BPI clinic once every other week. We're doing therapy at home with her several times a day, but I'd like to be more aggressive with her therapy, as time is of the essence. A relative recommended cold laser acupuncture and homeopathy. Does anyone have experience with either of these? We're also considering cranio-sacral therapy. Thanks for any advice in this area.

A BPI specialist really should look at your child before you proceed to those other options. There are many fine BPI specialists around the country who have a handle on the injury and can recommend your best course of action. Although relatives mean well, I would let a medical professional with expertise in this injury advise you initially. Also, I would recommend reading as much as you can about the injury on your own so you can ask the right questions. Parents with BPI children also can be a great source of guidance and insight. Perhaps there is a support group in your area where you could talk to others. All the best to you and your child.

Both cold laser acupuncture and homeopathy can bring the body to it's greatest ability to heal itself (and we believe in alternative medicine and we have done both since my daughter's birth many years ago) but that doesn't mean that it can heal torn or avulsed nerves. If it could, then there would have been a few nobel prizes won and we'd be doing that rather than going through traumatic surgeries.

Phrenic nerve damage can be very serious and you need to see top BPI specialistS asap. Please don't waste time on this. Do your research now and and get multiple opinions from the top specialists.

If you are doing the cold laser, I hope this is being done by an expert acupuncturist? And homeopathy done by a well-trained and expert homeopath? I'm sorry to stress the word "expert" here but the reason I am doing that is because both cold laser and homeopathy are available over the counter but both are very serious treatments that need to be administered by experts especially in the case of your baby with such an injury. There are many people that take CEU courses for a weekend or watch a video and think that they can treat a person with these modalities. It's just not so. Again, I don't mean to offend and I just want to clarify the seriousness of the matter.

Read as much as you can about bpi, the recovery of the nerves, phrenic nerve damage and primary nerve grafting surgeries so that you can be prepared when you see the specialists.

I wish your baby the best recovery possible.

Dear Guest,
I would also urge you to see a specialist in the field of brachial plexus injuries. There is a great deal that can be done for your child, but you must be extremely careful when using unproven alternative treatments.
Hopefully, you can check the resource page and find a doctor near you. The sooner you find a doctor you can trust to follow your daughter's progress, the better.
Best of luck to you and your little one.
Sue

We have used a combination of traditional and alternative forms of treatment for Matthew since birth. I would definitely seek the advice of a bpi professional; however seek advice form the alternative sources as well. I would caution you that many alternative people we have seen have taken on the attitude that they can heal Matthew. I did not break their confidence; however they saw that they greatly enhanced his recovery but could not 100% cure him. What the surgeons said about Matthew's nerve regeneration totally convinced me that acupuncture was very beneficial for him. Matthew had one avulsed nerve that nothing happened with, unfortunately once a nerve dies like that only surgery can repair it (from my knowledge, I haven't heard anything different yet, it would be nice if someone could find a way to fix this to save so many babies from surgery). His one ruptured nerve had almost regenerated to repair itself. And to this day according to the specialists Matthew should have had no hand function at the time of surgery based on the large neuroma on his nerves that control his hand function but he regained 85% function (he had 50% at the time of surgery). We have had great results with alternatives; however I think just with surgical options you need to do your research on the methods as well as the practitioners.

Cindy