United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

My son has a brachial plexus injury from a football game on November 20, 2010. He has hand movement in any position. The only time that he can lift his arm from the elbow or shoulder is when he is laying on his back. Has anyone gone through a phase like this and then recovered with Rehab?
He goes to Mayo for evaluation of the injury Feb. 22nd.

my injury occured as a result of a botched surgery. the surgoen stretched my brachial plexus nerve. for several months, i could not raise my arm unless i was on my back. and then it would fall on my face after a few seconds. i gave my self a couple black eyes. it has been almost 8 months now i have a lot of function back in my arm and hand. i can raise my arm completely over my head while in any position and hold it there for long periods of time. (a minute) i still have no sensation in my arm at all. i can put my arm on a hot stove and not feel it. my hand has minimal sensation in it. i can tell it is touching something but i can not feel textures, heat or cold unless it is extreme heat or cold. it is getting better all the time. has he had an EMG? if not i would start demanding one now. i had to get very ugly and agressive with my doc before he agreed to one. if the injury is a stretch, it will get better but will take a loooong time. as far as the pain goes, my pain at first was unbearable. now it is tolerable. i take no pain meds at this point. i hope his recovery is remarkable. good luck

oh footballplayer mom i feel for u how old is ur son my son got his bpi playing football second game of his senior year in 2009 as of today he still has no arm movement just hand and fingers he had 13 nerve grafts jan 29 2010 and in nov he had a tendon transfer so hoping with that he ll get some movement its not only hard on the kids but also on us . so the best of luck to you and your son

You are definately doing the right thing going to the Mayo clinic. I have recovered from an injury that started with no other movement but my hand. I started to get slights bends and rotations happening within the first couple of months after my accident. I had an emg done about 1 month post accident, which only left me still wondering if I was going to be like this forever. Through all of the info I had gathered, mostly from this site, I decided I had better go to a specialist. At 5 months post accident I went to the Mayo clinic. Up until my appointment, I had been in PT for about 3 months. It was definately helping, I was getting little bits of movement back very slowly. I highly recommend a pool as well. Your arm becomes weightless and all of a sudden I could do movements with the resistance of the water. During my visit to the Mayo, I underwent numerous tests over a 2 day period culminating in a meeting with several top specialists. They decided to postpone my surgeries that were scheduled and give me 6 more months. I knew they wouldn't put off surgery unless they were pretty confident I would recover to an acceptable degree. The next few months were truly amazing. I started to see slow but sure improvement. I am now 29 months post accident and virtually back to normal. Other than some muscle mass, I have 100% function back. The bottom line is I believe you are doing the best thing in going to the Mayo! You will get answers there. Hopefully it is what you are hoping to hear. Just remember that each injury is unique to itself, so do everything you can to better your chances of recovery. Feel free to email me if you would like to talk more. Good luck, JJ.

humbo.. i have a stretch injury also. it is from a botched surgery. it has been 8 months. i have not had an EMG or any other testing. i had to get ugly with my surgeon just to get the EMG scheduled. is your arm and hand smaller than what it was before the accident? or your fingers curl when you try to use them? if i put an object in my bpi hand, i can hold on to it, but i can not pick up a soft item like a pillow, a folded towel, or anything that has any give to it. but i can pick up items that are hard like a remote,or something with no give to it but sometimes if the item is heavy or bulky, i cant pick it up.
another thing is the lack of sensation and not being able to tell that my arm is touching anthing.
did you go through those kind of things also also?
it seems like everyone else on here is a lot more severe than i am. i dont recall anyone that has almost fully recovered. i am really happy for you

Jmar, believe me, I feel extremely lucky to have recovered from this unbelievably hard injury to cope with. No one really understands what you are going through to have part of your body paralyzed and not understanding what will or will not come back. It was a huge struggle for me. As far as my hand, my function remained pretty good right after the accident. My injury was c5 - c6, so it affected my delts, spinatus muscles, bicep, and brachioradiallis. My deltoids and spinatus muscles were the first to start coming back. It wasn't until about 13 - 14 months that my bicep started to function. My feeling in my arm seemed to just slowly return over the course of the first year. Still to this day I do not have feeling in various parts of my shoulder and forearm, but that is of zero importance to me compared to my overall recovery. Also my injured arm is defintely a bit smaller than my uninjured arm. It takes me a while to put muscle on, I am pretty skinny, so my atrophy really showed. As far as your hand goes, It seemed the muscles further away just took more patience and work. Just keep moving those fingers, because it may take a while longer to reinnervate. The work will be worth it though if your nerves are able to heal. I hope you can get some more answers soon. Good luck and keep working at it. JJ

hey football mom,
i'm kinda the same way. i'm beginning to get a little lift thing when on my back. i'm not sure if it is a shoulder muscle pulling up the arm to bring the hand off the floor or if there is something going on at the elbow. usually when i'm in the pool with a water wing on the bad wrist so it floats i can bring my hand back to me body and "punch" ever so slowly forward, again not exactly sure which muscle group is doing the work but i think it's all good anyway. best wishes to your son and your family.
might be good therapy for your son to post when he gets ready to, this forum has been a great help for my recovery.

Humboldtmtnbkr-Thank you for input from a person with a great outcome. It gives me great comfort to hear from someone who has recovered without surgery.
Jesse was at Beth Israel in Boston for 3 days after his injury. They did CT's and MRI's. Dr. Bae at Childrens was consulted and he told us that it was too soon for testing. While he was there he regained movement of his hand. When he got back to New Haven after Thanksgiving Break he saw Dr. Dodds. In New Haven he has had a MRI and EMG. He has had Physical Therapy both at school and at home while he was on Christmas break. He has also visited a pain specialist. I feel good about the care he has received, it just seems to be one of those medical problems without black and white answers. Mayo was suggested as an option for a second opinion, not because we are unhappy with his care, more because of the uniqueness and complexity of BPI's. A physician did suggest to me that if he is lifting his arm when laying on his back, he is probably using different muscles then when you are upright.
We are very fortunate that he has maintained a great attitude and I think that can be half the battle. His biggest concern is that he was suppose to complete his Marine training this summer and that is on hold. One of my concerns is the pain control and when that begins getting better. The pain specialist said that they would not consider decreasing his medications for at least 4 months.
Thank you all for your information and support, it is very helpful to hear from people who have been there!

Football BPI Mom

I too am a football BPI mom. My son also injured his BP in a scrimmage Sept 1, 2010. At the time of the injury the doctors really didn’t explain to us how bad his injury was. I did a lot of research to find the “right” doctor to take him too. Our son has the BPI injury plus avulsions from C6-C8 and probably T1. They’re not sure about C5 he does have movement in his deltoid and is able to shrug his shoulder and with non weight bearing is able to move his arm forward and back and away from his torso laying down or sitting with arm on table. The doctor we were seeing in NYC thought his T1 might be in tact but couldn’t be sure. When he talked of surgery that’s when we went to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion.

We happened to speak to a patient that had surgery in NYC. His first two surgeries failed and that’s when he went to the Mayo Clinic. I also spoke to his mother and she had said that they went to Boston, NYC, Louisiana and then Mayo (that was in 2003). She said if it happened today, she would not hesitate to go to the Mayo Clinic. My rational to go to the Mayo was that our son is 17 years old, junior in high school and an athlete in football, lacrosse and wrestling, not to mention all the outdoors stuff that he does. We live in New Jersey so the Mayo isn’t a quick ride around the corner. Since the 1st surgery is so critical we wanted to give him the best shot.

We met with a “team” of surgeons at the Mayo Clinic week of Christmas and his 1st surgery is scheduled for 16 Feb 2011. Depending on the damage to the root nerves they plan to do a free muscle transfer just to get him some mobility back in his arm. He will never be 100% but anything is better then what he has now. He can’t use it at all. Good choice to seek a 2nd opinion from the Mayo. These are the doctors we saw and that will be performing the surgery: Dr. Alex Shin (Ortho Surgeon); Dr. Allen Bishop (Ortho Surgeon); Dr. Robert Spinner (Neuro Surgeon) all great professionals and really to the point. Good luck!

Can any of you tell me what you or your sons abilities were when you went for your assessment. I am trying to get a sense of my sons level of use compared to each of you at assessment time. I am trying to get a better idea of what determines who will need surgery and who has the chance of recovery with Physical Therapy.