Calf Botox for CP - Cerebral Palsy Message Board

Charmedlee · 05-30-2005, 01:47 PM

Hi, new to the board but I need some advice or help. My nephew had the botox shot's in the calf of his legs last week and now he doesn't walk well at all and today he doesn't even try to walk.....he's crawling. He is going to be 3 years old in a few weeks. Next week he is going to start in the casts and they want him back in the AFO's. Wondering if anyone else had problems with those. He was put in them a while back because he couldn't put his foot down but after about 6-8 weeks his heels started turning in and made his feet worse than they were. The Dr who administered the shots recommends to put him back in the AFO's but the therapists say NO because it does cause some childrens feet more harm than good.
If anyone has been through this or can help determine which way to go it will be helpful
Thanks
Lee

Freestyles · 06-15-2005, 09:45 AM

Welcome CharmedLee,

How is your nephew doing today?

My first and only experience with botox was in the calf.. The result was supposed to help with a low arch and pronation in my left foot... Unfortunatley the result was not as I expected.. It made it worse for the next few weeks, only to be compounded by pain steming from the arch when I put any sigificant weight on my feet... The bright side (or not so bright side to botox depending on how you look at things) is that the results are temporary. Any negative effects will wear off eventually and unfortunately so will the positive, but the idea is that through the added range of motion, you can through repeated injections and streching and excercise eventually yeild perminent results.

Hope that helps,

F.S

NJenn · 06-15-2005, 12:04 PM

I had a similar experience to F.S. w/ botox in calf. I had pain in my arches (or what would be my arches if I had them), and also pain in the muscles on the front of my leg (shin area) for a few weeks afterwards-- especially when I wore my afos. It subsided, though, and I still have some residual new dorsiflexion from the shots. It's kind of cool.