United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

hi everyone, i am new here, but not new to bpi. my son is almost 10 and we saw a specialist for the first time yesterday! he had therapy as a baby and has pretty good function, but could still use some help. we have a choice of either surgery, and they will yield about the same results for him. i was looking for any pros and cons you all could send my way! the recovery with the osteotomy would definately be easier! i am worried about potential future injury with it though. my son loves to ride his 4-wheeler. i am afraid if he rolls it, it will shatter or something with the plate and pins in it. this is all very new and i just want to do the right thing for my son. i have been reading a lot of the posts here, and we are blessed with the results he has gotten with just therapy. i just don't ever want to say, i should have done that for him!
he accepts that he is different and has never asked the why question. he knows he got stuck and had to be pulled out! i have always been very up front with him. i asked him lastnight what he thought about everything we talked about and his response was he would do what ever was best for him. i am so proud of him for the way he handled the appointment. now we just have a huge deciosion to make! HELP!

trying to bump this up. is there anyone here who has done either surgery on an older child? really want to hear the pros and cons from families that have gone through this.

Louise,

Who did Elizabeth's osteotomy?

nevermind, I just saw it on the other post. Do you have some photos you are willing to share with me? Maybe before and after osteotomy. My email is marnie73@alltel.net.

thaks so much for the answer. i am going to e-mail some questions to the dr also, but i really need to hear from those who have gone through. it is especially nice to hear about your daughter, since they are the same surgery age! if anyone else is willing to share, i am anxious to hear!

have they said anything about needing more surgery for the same issues in the future? i wish you the best in your own recovery process.

thanks again!

my son had humeral osteotomy at the age of 7 and forearm osteotomy at the age of 8 1/2.He is now 11 years old. they were by far the easiest of any surgeries for him, a couple hours after being discharged from hospital, we went to the museum and hard rock cafe. Very little pain, used tylenol. cast was on for I believe 6 weeks. humeral placed his arm in a more neutral position, looked great right after cast came off, somebody fell on him a week after cast came off and broke his forearm, so he was casted again for 4 weeks, no therapy and lost the results basically. Dr Davino in Houston performed surgery. scar on humeral looks bad, needs revision, forearm looks great. Had pin removed after forearm and was super simple. He will have triangle tilt next week, dr recommended it to begin with and said we could try osteotomies first, but in the end, the TT needs to be done. By the way, he is in pronation now, no supination at all.

Did your son lose the results from his humeral osteotomy as well or just the forearm osteotomy? I have read where several kids have broken there arms after the osteotomy. Very scary. I am considering the humeral osteotomy for my son who is now 11. He had the triangle tilt when he was 8, and it failed. Good luck to you in whatever you decide.

he lost results from the humeral, we couldn't see any results from the forearm. This is why we believe that the TT is needed, his shoulder issue needs to be addressed. his internal rotation is getting much worse, limb shortening more pronounced. We were told before osteotomies that he needed TT, but it was just too scary and were told that we could try osteotomies, but ultimately still need TT. we believe that the doctor was right. best of luck with your decision...