We struggled just a little with this, but my husband and I decided to go ahead and do Botox therapy with Trey.

He received these injections in his left arm and leg on the 23rd of Jan. and his left leg has been casted to stretch the hamstring and heal chord.  The cast has been changed out for the past two Mondays, they say he will have a total of three casts (which he now has had) and it will be changed every Monday for three weeks starting with the first cast.  The point is that he has been doing very well.  Right after the Botox in his arm area he reached up with his left hand and touched his ear (not on purpose, but he still did it) and he has been doing really well with the cast/stretching.  His therapist has noticed that he is really loose (which is good because his hamstring is always tight) and his arm is loose too.

The Botox is supposed to weaken the muscles so they will "loosen" up and stretch.  It has seemed to work for Trey so far.  He still isn't purposefully using his left hand but he is doing great with his leg and his hand is slowly coming along.  I think maybe as he gets older he will see how important it is to use two hands.  He doesn't ignore the left hand, just prefers the right.

Thanks for listening/reading.

Michell

Michell,
              As you know Mandy has been getting Botox injections for 2 yrs. now and it has helped her tremendously, the neuro. here in Ga. seems to be much more acurate with the injections than our experience in Va. her arm she almost extends perfectly straight and her hand when relaxed watchin T.V. or whatever is a slight letter C her thumb and pointer are the last to come around but are doing much better at certain times her middle and ring finger and pinky can straighten all the way out not for real long but compared to a balled up fist you couldn't jack hammer open what a difference. I'm glad you decided to go threw with it I know its a hard decision especially with a baby it was hard for us and Mandy's an adult. I'm not so sure the Botox will help them regain the use of the arm or hand but to make it more natural looking and comfortable for them unless I'm mistaken. Hope everything keeps moving forward, Good Luck.
                                                      Nancy

Michell I've been wondering about you guys.I'm so glad to hear that Trey is still doing good.So far Kathleen hasn't needed Botox,the fact that she also has down syndrome has lessened any tightening of her muscles.She has extremely low tone.Her left hand and arm gets tight when she uses her right.She wore a hand splint for a while and that helped too.We're still doing the electrical stimulation too.Her left leg has never really had too much tone,but now her ankle is tightening and she's losing range of motion.She has drop foot and wears a brace but in spite of this her ankle is so tight it's hard to left her foot up in a 90dg angle to get her brace on.We saw her physiotist yesterday and eh thinks she will probably need Botox in the future if keeps tightneing.So I will probably turn to you with questions then LOL.We also learned that she iwll probably need a full leg brace with a year or 2.It's just way too heavy to put her in one right now.
 What a trooper Trey must be to be putting up with all of this.It sure does make it easier on mom and dad to follow through with all that needs to be done.thanks for the update.
Mary Grace