Healing From The Root Cause (Wellness Care) - Vs. Sickness Care
Hello Christianson Chiro Gang! I’m back from maternity leave and have returned to work, so if you need care for you and/or your pets, contact me! I’m available.
4/17/22
There are endless stories that can go with this title, but this one happens to be about my daughter, Sky. She was finally born over 2 weeks late! She was a big gal at birth, 9 pounds, 1 oz! For a first time mom, I thought that was a rather large baby. We had quite the complicated birth (we were in the hospital for 6 days), something I may write a blog about another time; but for now, I’m just going to focus on one thing from birth to talk about, for baby Sky.
The pediatrician at the hospital noticed the day after Sky was born, that her left hand/arm didn’t look the same as her right hand. She wasn’t using it much, and her range of motion was very limited. In addition, there were some movements that she wasn’t able to do. This affected her shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand. Her left hand was also clenched into a fist, with her thumb tucked into her fist. The pediatrician said she thought it was a milder case of Erb’s Palsy, also known as Brachial Plexus Palsy.
4/17/22
The Brachial Plexus is a bundle of nerves in the shoulder that carries movement and sensory signals from the spinal cord to the arms and hands. An injury to the brachial plexus therefore affects movement and sensation to the arms and hands. This can be on just one side, or on both sides. In Sky’s case, it was just on the left side. For newborns, this condition can occur due to shoulder dystocia (shoulders get stuck during birth), a large baby, prolonged birth, or breech presentation (legs and feet first). Sky was in the correct position, but we did have a prolonged labor (28 hours) and she was a large baby. Although she may not have been a HUGE baby, I am a small statured mom, so I think for my size, compared to her size, she was a very large baby. My guess is that she had limited room towards the end of pregnancy, and wasn’t able to have free movement of her left arm. She was in the same position almost all the time from 20 weeks on. The hospital pediatrician recommended that we bring her to Gillette’s Children’s Hospital to get her evaluated. She mentioned that they would likely have us do physical therapy with Sky, and that chances are, it would resolve without much further intervention. Throughout this blog post, I’ll include pictures of Sky including the date, they will go from earliest pictures, to the most recent picture at the end, so you can see how her hand/arm has improved over time.
4/23/22
Getting an Appointment/ Physical Therapy
When we got home from the hospital, I called to get Sky an appointment at Gillette’s. Their first opening wasn’t for a month out. We booked the appointment. I know from my chiropractic practice, that the sooner you treat something, the better your outcomes are, and the quicker you get results. This is also what I read about treating Brachial Plexus Palsy when I pulled up some studies online. I didn’t want to wait a full month before beginning to treat Sky. My mom is also a chiropractor, we found some physical therapy exercises to do with Sky, and started doing them every day with her. My mom also gave Sky several chiropractic adjustments, her first one was the day after she was born.
By the time of her appointment (5/10/22), Sky’s movement was much improved in her left arm. When we went to the physical therapy session, I was a bit disappointed that their plan for the visit was only to evaluate how her arm and hand were doing, they didn’t plan to do any exercises or stretches with her at this visit. We got a quote for the visit ahead of time, and the cost was over $1,500 for both parts of her appointment. That was the quote without insurance, we haven’t gotten the bill yet with insurance, but it was an expensive visit regardless. The good news was the physical therapist was really impressed with how great her movement was of her left shoulder and elbow, it was almost normal. She said the only area left to work on was the left wrist, and fingers.
5/6/22
2nd Part of the Appointment, with the Physicians
Initially, when we were at the next part of the appointment with the physicians, they said she was doing amazing, and that they often treat these cases with the wait and see method. That they monitor to see that things are improving as they should, but that they limit interventions unless they are necessary. And that very few of these cases require surgery. When we were almost done with our appointment, several other doctors came in the room, and they told me they didn’t think Sky had Brachial Plexus Palsy because her shoulder and elbow movement were normal. I tried to explain to them that those areas hadn’t been moving like normal before and that through doing the exercises at home, they had improved to where they were now. I told them Sky had also had several chiropractic adjustments. They didn’t seem to give much consideration to my comments about chiropractic care.
They told me they wanted to do an MRI on Sky, as well as an EMG (a diagnostic procedure, to evaluate the health of muscles and nerve cells - by putting needles into her muscles and assessing how they were functioning. I was told that Sky would have to be put under for these procedures as she can’t move during an MRI and the EMG would be painful. I asked why we were going to do these procedures, and was wondering if they now thought that Sky’s condition was more serious. I was told that they didn’t necessarily think it was more serious, but that they wanted to figure out what was going on with her. Something they mentioned was that she could have radial nerve palsy (this one affects the thumb and fingers more). By doing a quick search for one-sided radial nerve palsy, I found a meta-analysis study (where they combine the info from many studies on the subject) saying that radial nerve palsy in infants has even better healing rates than brachial plexus palsy. They suggested a couple of customs splints to help with the movement of her wrist and fingers. I agreed to the splints and said I wanted to wait on the other testing.
Chiropractic Treatment in the Meantime
I was told the soonest appointment to get her the splints was a month out. Again, I didn’t want to wait that long to get her treated. I called all of the Gillette’s locations, and got her a splint appointment a week and a half later (5/19/22). Before that appointment, I treated Sky everyday with a treatment I do at my chiropractic clinic, Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM - more info about that is on my website). I did a nerve treatment on her. Nerves take a very long time to heal; so the program was 50 minutes each time.
5/11/22, After one FSM nerve treatment - movement improved in her middle finger.
Each day as I did the treatment, we could see VAST improvements in her wrist/hand/and finger movements. Before this week, her hand was closed so often, she had big sores on the inside of her hand due to lack of exposure to air. However, as the week went on and her hand opened up so much more, her sores were 90% healed by the time of her splint appointment (5/19/22)!
At the splint appointment, the practitioner said Sky’s movements were looking great! She said the order had been for 2 splints, but that she thought Sky only needed the smaller splint to help with moving her thumb out of her fist. She said she was thrilled with Sky’s movements and that she’d like a follow up to see her in a month, but that she thought Sky was definitely on the right track.
5/15/22 After 4 FSM treatments
Where She Is Now
Sky is 2 weeks out from her follow up appointment to see how she has been doing. She is using her left arm a lot, you can’t tell a big different between her right side and her left side. The only difference that is still quite easy to see, is that her left thumb still spends more time tucked in than the right side. However, her left hand is MUCH more open than it was and her thumb motion improves a little at a time. She is doing great! We opted out of the MRI and the EMG and further visits to diagnose her condition as I believe she has improved greatly and will be having normal motion of her left hand and arm very soon. As a quick recap, her treatments so far have been chiropractic adjustments, FSM treatment for nerves, physical therapy stretches at home, and the spint for her left thumb.
5/16/22 After 5 FSM treatments
Why It’s Important Not To Wait
If Scott and I had just waited for our first appointment at Gillette’s, and waited until the splint appointment time they suggested, Sky would have gone 2 months without any treatments for her left arm. Instead, she has had 6 weeks of treatments and healing time already. If you read studies about Brachial Plexus Palsy, the literature states that outcomes are great, as long as treatment is started within the first month. We would have missed out on that.
5/21/22 After 6-7 FSM treatments
Often, there are simpler, more cost effective ways that you can support healing, that can give you great results. I encourage you to seek out alternative and holistic healing options as well as medical doctor care. Don’t wait with a health concern, get it treated as soon as you can. You will save yourself time, and money. Health for ourselves, our families, our children and our pets is so very important. You know that if you’ve gone through any significant health concerns in your family. If I can help assist you on your healing or wellness journey, please reach out! I am always happy to answer questions, or to talk with you to see if I can help you.
5/27/22 After 7-8 FSM treatments
