United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hello everyone, It has been a few years since i posted. i want to apologize to all of you who i have lost touch with. I have missed you guys though.

Whitney is doing very well. She is 7 now, and in the first grade.
As far as her injury, this is what is going on.
She can not touch her belly, and has trouble reaching lower midline.
she has very limited finger and thumb function. Her grip is great but extention is lacking.
We are trying to decide if Botox would help with thumb extention . Dr. Kozin said that it may help and would be worth a try if we decide to do it.

My question is. Have any of you had experiences with botox in the hand muscles, and if so, please tell me about it.

Thanks,
Amanda

Amanda:
We have done botox on Juliana (not a wrinkle on her!!.. sorry, couldn't resist!) 3 times. We have not done it on her hand muscles, but I have been a proponent of botox for many years.

Besides, Kozin doesn't recommend things lightly.

claudia

If I were to have a child get botox in the hand, I would ONLY do it using the method that Dr. Kozin uses. He uses a special needle that allows you to send electrical stimulation through the needle directly to the point where the needle would release the botox. You absolutely know without a doubt that you have the needle in the right place that way. With very small muscles in the hand, there is (I believe) no other way to be sure you are injecting the right muscle.

Joshua had experimental botox of his lats and teres major using this technique. Unfortunately it didn't really do anything for him, but it was interesting to hear of the technique. Especially since Dr. Kozin said the first time he stimmed the needle was actually in the teres MINOR muscle, which we were hoping would find some strength if the teres major muscle was put offline for awhile. Botoxing the teres minor muscle was the last thing he wanted to do

Kate

My daughter's hand function is the same. Loss of sensation, grasp pretty good, no finger extension.
She had botox years ago because she co-contracts extensors/flexors. So we tried to botox the flexors to get more extension. You lose grasp so we haven't kept doing it. She still co-contracts. We are trying to use the biofeedback/estim unit to address this, but I think that is just how she's "wired" now.
You can try it to see how it works for her. As you know, it wears off after a few months.