United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

i was just wondering if there is anyone out there who has or knows someone who has fully recovered from this injury. i think that i was given a lot of false hope in the beginning, and now it seems i can't find anyone with any really good news apart from winning a lawsuit. just curious and needing some positive stories!

I suspect that maybe those that experienced full recovery may not use the services of this board anymore. Or maybe they would never have found it to begin with. I know that I only really started to research my daughter's injury to a great extent after I realized that I had been given false hope. This was about three months after my daughter's birth. I believe that there are many children that are only mildly affected by the injury who DO recover. I think the three month mark is what many doctors look to before starting "treatment" (with the exception of therapy). My daughter is considered (by several doctor's admissions) a severely injured child. Three surgeries have been done to no avail. We have come to accept this as God's plan for her life, and hope she will see it that way, too, and live life to her fullest advantage with our help. There are also children who recover, and those everywhere in between. Each case is unique. I wish your daughter the fullest recovery possible, and that grace for you and her to accept whatever happens!

Amy Clark

That doesn't even count the people whose children recovered so quickly, they never even learned the name of this condition. I have heard of MANY situations where someone says "oh, yeah... my baby didn't move her arm at first but by the time we went home from the hospital she was fine." There are even a few parents who have been on here whose older children had brief/fully recovered BPIs before the one came along who was permanently injured.

Kate

I wouldn't say that Sarah was "fully recovered" but she has had an excellent recovery so far. Sarah is 5 years old and will be starting kindergarten in 2 weeks. When she was born, the only movement she had was her fingers barely moving. Over the years we did formal therapy but mainly just therapy at home and its barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Her elbow is slightly bent and still can not fully go palm up. (almost though)

Feel free to email me with any questions you might have!

Like someone else said, many have moved on, but I stick around for times like this....

Mandie
msoileau@charter.net

I agree with previous posters. If someone had a full recovery, they probably don't stick around the boards for support. we were given a lot of false hope in the beginning, it wasn't until our child was 5 weeks old when we went to the neurologist and he said he was disappointed and that she would probably have a permanent injury. Everyone else said it would be fine in a few weeks. While she does have a perm injury, by all accounts, my almost 5 yr old has had a 95% recovery. She has been in therapy every week since she was 5 days old. she started with a slight shrug of shoulder and slight finger movement. she made a lot of improvement from 3-5 months and has had steady improvement (with some setbacks along the way) ever since. She is 100% functional, however there are a few things she does using compensatory movements (but only a trained eye can pick up). Keep the faith, it is quite overwhelming this journey we have been forced to take.

My son has not had a FULL recovery, but I believe he has had a very good one. Jacob's arm, like Mandie's daughter, is a little bent at the elbow when he standing or walking around. He also has a few issues with full suppination, although he does pretty well with it.
I agree completely with the other posters that the fully recovered would not be on the message boards talking about it...why would they?? I think they are out there, but we just don't hear from them.

In conversation with others I have heard of 5 to 6 babies born with brachial plexus injuries who recovered fully. One of the mothers told me that on day 10 her son stretched with both arms over his head, and that was it, he was completely fine after that.
I have only heard of 2 children (other than my daughter)that have permanent injuries, both have required surgery.

My daughter is 4 now and has not had surgery.
She got bicep function at 3 1/2 months (it was more of a flicker then)
At her 3 year check up Dr. Waters told me that she was 98% recovered, so technically not a full recovery, but I consider it a full recovery.

I think there are many children represented on this board who have permanent injuries. My daughter's arm is almost completely paralyzed after three surgeries.

"I have only heard of 2 children (other than my daughter)that have permanent injuries, both have required surgery"

I just re-read my post, what I meant to say is that I have only come across 2 other permanently injured children in my conversations with others.
I know that there are many more permanently injured children than that (sadly).

Sorry for the confusion, it must be from a lack of sleep, we now have a 11 week old daughter.....yawn.

Julie
mom to Libby, ROBPI 4yrs and Molly 11 weeks