United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Null,

I wanted to point out, I didn't post that paper to suggest you should go against your doctor's recommendation for e-stim. But if it were me, I would discuss the ideas presented with him/her and see if they think that you would be better off stimulating the other tricep muscles to avoid this potential problem. It all would depend on your doctor's opinion of the shoulder and whether it can actually withstand a stronger long head of the triceps.

Kate

To answer someone's question about how come triceps are not strong... Well, with my son we got his biceps strong and thought for the longest time that there were no triceps working because my son uses his shoulder instead of triceps they were not strengthening. After we had the needle in the skin test(sorry my mind went blank on the correct term) we found they they were slightly working so we did ALOT of OT therapy and finally got them to strengthen. All BPI's are different. It took awhile but it worked. This was the case with my little boy.

Just want to let those of you know what would happen if you decide to do nothing about the contracture. I am a 32 year old who has pretty good ROM of the shoulder-however I have always had a elbow contracture which increased as I aged. At age 18 I had and still have a 90 degree contracture which is a very tight contracture. I wish my parents would have pursued some type of splinting for me while I was young. I believe it would have benefitted me to stay splinted until I was done growing-which is for most children age 18. I am now in the process to see if I can gain anything by using a Dynasplint. As a child I cried through Physical Therapy and did not want to do my exercises and so my parents took me out of it. So as an encouragment to you parents as much as the kids fight you on physical therapy-stay with it for the benefit of your child. Nicole