Botox Injections for Ari

Ariana is one of the most determined little girls you will ever meet.  She works so hard to make her body do what it was meant to do each and every minute of her waking life.  She spends gets two hours each per week (home & school) of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.  We stretch out her little ankles, right arm, hand, and thighs every night until she wails for us to stop.  We put her in the stander, work her on the floor, position and reposition her, and still she smiles away.  She, understandably, gets frustrated with us at times and puts out her hand in the ‘stop’ sign or makes a razzing noise with her mouth when she’s had enough, or when she’s really had it, she’ll yell at us and try to pinch us with her left hand (stay out of the way of that one). 

Despite all the work that goes into helping Ari’s muscles to function properly, her legs still scissor when she stands up, preventing her from being able to take steps; her hips are being pulled out of the sockets just slightly, putting her at an increased likelihood of needing corrective hip surgery when she’s a little older; and she has tightness and muscle spasms.  Try as she might (and she does), Ari has one hell of a time holding onto objects with her right hand or lifting that arm up past elbow height.  I resisted it for a while, because I’m from a mindset that less is more when it comes to optional medical interventions for this little girl… but the time came when Ari needed a little more than what she or we could do for her spasticity.  So, we did what most parents of children with Cerebral Palsy do when tightness and muscle spasms are getting in the way of comfort, motion, and are threatening to cause other health problems (hip dislocation, growth deformities, scoliosis to name a few), we called on the assistance of a very reputable neurosurgeon and got Botox injections in a few specific locations in Ari’s muscles.  For Ari, these places targeted her right thumb, right bicep, inner thighs, and calves (controlling her Achilles tendons).

In Ari’s case, Botox has nothing to do with vanity or reducing signs of aging.  Rather, the Botox causes muscle relaxation, reduced spasticity, increased range of motion, and hopefully a reduced scissoring of the legs.  It does this by blocking the transmission of nerve impulses to the muscle.  In turn, the muscles relax.  Ari was under light anesthesia for this procedure, so she didn’t feel the pokes and didn’t get scared.  It went very smoothly and was covered in full by her CRS insurance.  We were told that we should start seeing the effects in a week.  It has been four days since the procedure, and we can already notice considerable relaxation.  And when I say “we”, I mean… even Ari.  Ari now raises her right arm up and tells me in her way (with her look, and her eyes, her smile, and her timed vocalizations), ‘look at my arm mom, I can move it!’.  I can’t wait to see what other comfort and chance for improvement this brings to her in the weeks and months to come.  We have a 4-6 month window (it wears off in that amount of time and is needed again) for Ari to move and explore, using her body that she has never had before.  Ready… go!

Ari loved pressing the light globe spinny thing and making it go all by herself and watching Micky Mouse Clubhouse while we waited for her turn to get called in.