Hi! I am brand new to the forum, but only came through a link about CP to here. My little boy has mild hemiplegic spasticity (left side) and seemed "normal" until around 5 months old. I noticed he wasn't using his left hand much. I went to the GP and he said that there was nothing wrong with him, he will just be right handed. I went to the child health nurse (god love them!!) and voiced my concerns. It was she who told me to get a referral to a pediatrician.

We did that, DH went to the appointment- I had just started back teaching full time and couldn't make it. When I got home from school, I asked how the appointment went. DH told me to sit and told me that it appeared that TJ had cerebral palsy. I burst into tears and grabbed my little boy (now 8 months old) and cried and cried. All I knew of CP was the comedian "Steady Eady" (who I actually found very UNfunny). TJ had to go have his MRI in Brisbane (we are in Toowoomba) and again I cried when they put him under the anesthetic.

The MRI showed that he had a small danamge to his brain and was probably caused as a small stoke while in the womb (like a previous posted). Great...now I was blaming myself. What had I done wrong while pg? Was drinking that coke what did it?

We returned to the pediatrian and he explained it all to us and assured me that I could not have done anything wrong. As TJ was born by elective c-section (my first was an emergency and I didn't want to go through that again), his delievery was untraumatic and did not cause the CP. He referred us to the CP League. He said that TJ's CP is mild and he will probably only have a small limp by the time he goes to school.

CP League in QLD have been a god send. We have had on-going OT for TJ through there and some physio (it is hard to fill this position in Toowoomba).

The end of last year, we were told about CP Health (at Royal Children's Hospital) in Brisbane which is a gov funded ward. They do botox, give OT, phsyio etc. We made an appointment and went at the beginning of this year.

9 days before TJ's 3rd birthday, he received his first botox injections (4) into his calf and is in a "Thumb's Up" study where they were looking at whether the effects of botox in the thumb is worthwhile. This is because the gov hadn't approved upper limb botox as yet. While he was getting his leg botox, he was also injected (under general) with either botox or a placebo in his thumb. They cast his arm out so his thumb would stuck out for a week (every kid had this done) and then we had a ho,e program to follow. He just had his follow up appointment (6 weeks after) and they OT and Dr are guessing he was one of the 50% who didn't get botox in his thumb. Great news though...gov has just approved upper limb botox in the last few weeks. He returns to get his next lot of botox at the end of the year and they will look at doing his arm for real this time!

He has an AFO on all the time, we have a resting splint for his hand which we put on him while he is sleeping and we do a lot of stretching and OT activities. He is getting there! We were desperate for him to walk and he did- a month before his second birthday.

He really is the happiest little man and such a cutie. He has all his teachers (daycare and swimming), drs, OTs and phsyios in love with him.

Wow...that was rather long. I was only coming on to say "YES, MY SON HAS HAD BOTOX" and look what happened.

If anyone has any questions about the boto or CP, I am more than happy to chat!

Angie