United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi All,

This is my first message in this forum. I am new to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My baby has upper limb brachial plexus.
I am looking for some specialist here...?I tried to contact the given New Orleans specialist but they have already retired.
If there is someone who can help us Please feel free to reply.

Please !!!

A mother,
Jyoti

Although I don't know of a specialist in Baton Rouge, LA. Dr. Nath is located in Houston, Texas, he has cared for my daughter since she was 4 weeks. His practice is the Texas Institute of nerve & Paralysis 713-592-9900. Hope this helps.




Shajwanda
website: hbpsupport.webs.com
email: hbpsupport@gmail.com

thanx alot Shajwanda.
I will call him for sure.

Hi Jyoti,

This is the first time that I've visted ubpn.org in a couple of years...it's been so long that I couldn't remember my log-in and I had to re-register!

I lived in Baton Rouge with my family until last year, when we moved to the DC area. In 2007, my daughter was born at Woman's Hospital and had an OBPI to her right arm and shoulder.

In short, there are no true specialists in the Baton Rouge area, or really anywhere in LA. With all due respect to Shajwanda, there is NO way I would have taken my daughter to see Dr. Nath. We did extensive research on specialists (many whose names we found on this site) and opted to take her to see drs in Philadelphia, St. Louis and Indianapolis. Dr. Nath has a terrible reputation among Orthopedic surgeons and OTs and PTs. He was also investigated for something (medical related, with his research, but the details escape me) and he was forced out of his practice. He has since established his own practice and has a reputation for being very "scapel happy" recommending surgery when it may not be completely necessary. As I mentioned, we opted to take our daughter to see Dr. Scott Kozin with PA Shriner's Hospital (we LOVE him and acutally saw him just last week), Dr. Alex Mih with Indiana Hand Center and Dr. TS Parks with St. Louis Children's Hospital. We were fortunate and our daughter avoided nerve transfer/repair surgery and it is likely that she will not require tendon transfer surgery.

I would recommend that you do try to establish with an orthopedic surgeon in BR though. Michael Robichaux is an Ortho at SSC on Bluebonnet and he is WONDERFUL. He has alot of experience and has a wonderful bedside manner. I've also heard great things about David Rabalais. He is younger and his dad was an ortho surgeon in Zachary. He has a very good reputation among other orthos in the area. If you are looking for OT services, I can recommend a couple of excellent OTs, both through the state's Early Steps program and through Woman's Center for wellness.

If you are interested in chatting about this or any other physician questions, feel free to email me at mclarkwalker@yahoo.com. I have a pretty good background on the medical community in Baton Rouge and can find the answers if I don't know (my mom has been a nurse anesthetist in Baton Rouge for the last 26 years).

Best of luck and I hope you are enjoying life in Baton Rouge!

Melissa

After dealing with this injury for the last 13 years of my childs life, I can offer this....it does not hurt to get opinions from several specialists in the field of BPI. Dr Nath has done several of the surgeries for my son and although he has gone through a lot of criticism, he has been excellent for my child and my family as he has been for probably hundreds of others. I did not find him to be scapel happy at all. The parent has to make an educated decision as to have surgery or not. (You could always send him a video, or find out if he will be having clinic in your area)

We have seen Dr Kozin(Great Doctor and person, by the way), The Saint Louis BPI team, have contacted Dr Mih's office and never even got a call back after I called them on several occasions. I don't know if these doctors view video, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.


Best of luck to you, this is a very hard road to start down.