Cerebral Palsy Support Group

Have you checked into PERCS with Dr. Nuzzo? His web site is www.pediatric-orthopedics.com. It is very wordy and sometimes hard to understand but if you call his office they are very helpfull in explaining the procedure. He is world renowned and his having amazing results.
I have a four yr old daughter w. cp who was a candidte for dorsal rhizotomy and all of the muscle lengthening. I spend about 2 months reserching both procedures and we chose to take our daughter to see Dr. Nuzzo.
Our dughter is 4 yrs old and walked with a walker because of very tight muscle tone in the he left leg. Her left foot almost turned backwards. She had the surg. In Nov. 2008 and has been walking on her own without her walker every since. The surg. lasted a little over an hour, she had no suctures and we were able to take her back to the motel that afternoon. She had casts on both feet and by the next morning we had her taking a couple of steps w/ help. 4 wks after surg. she had the cast taken off and about 3 wks after that was able to walk on her own. If you have any questions please feel free to msg me.
Monique

Thanks for your post. i will research that as well. What made you decide on PERCS instead of SDR? Does it have as good of a success rate as the SDR?

Dr. Nuzzo has a very high success rate. I think it is about 98%. He invented this surg. about 8 yr ago. We decided on PERCS because it is sooo much less invasive!! I talked with a number of families who had chosen both procedures. I guess the decided factor for us was 1. Dr. Nuzzo success rate 2. SDR,s recovery (pain, PT) was not something we wanted to put out daughter thru at age 4. I did talked to families who had SDR and they had a great experience.

i have been researching PERCS all morning and does sound too good to be true, too simple to produce such great results. I, too, am thinking, why put her through the huge process of sdr if this will have the same results.
In research, did you find it had permanent results? Were the changes as good as sdr changes?
also, do you know how much it costs?

There were some cases w/ PERCS that the procedure had to be done again, from what I could find out & what Dr. Nuzzo said it was in very extreme cases of CP or when the child reached puberty. Dr Nuzzo also does SDR. His look on things is VERY consertive (We really liked). The total that the Dr billed our Ins. is 25,000. Our Ins because he was out of state only payed 60% (usually 90%) I have since appield that and was able to prove he is 1 of 3 Dr. in the world doing this procedure none of them in our net work so the Ins. payed 80%. The lady that does his billing is so very helpfull. Because we were coming from such a long way he gave us a huge discount. In the end we had to pay him $1,800.00 2 wk before surg. He took what ins payed him and wrote off the rest. His staff is wonderful and Overlook Hosp. staff was woderful to. There is also a Hosp bill, which was about $3,000.00 and the anesthisia bill which was about $1,500.00. The hosp. is letting us make payments and the anesthisia gave us a 20% discount for paying it off.

We flu into Newark on a Sunday and flu out on Thurs. We could have flown home on Wen. (the day after surg.) but we were trying to play it safe, not sure if that would be to soon for Lexie.
When I first heard about PERCS I thought the same thing. How come this isn't standard procedure and why am I just hearing about this. I have to say 7 months out from surg. my husband and I both thinks it was the best decision we made for Lexie. For us, how we found out about Dr. Nuzzo was such a God thing we just new he had a hand in this.

Please let me know if you have anymore ?. My prayers are with you. The decision on what is best for your child is so hard.

I forgot to mention when our ins. paid at a higher rate Dr. Nuzzo sent us $1,100.00 back. I just got the feeling in dealing with his office that it was never about the $, it was all about the kids.

Sorry I keep thinking of things to tell you. Get on the OurCPKids@yahoo.com. It is much like DS. There are alot of families on there that have either had SDR or PERCS. They would would very helpful I am sure. You will notice they all are BIG Dr. Nuzzo fans!!

thanks for all the info. I will check that site and run all of this by my husband.
I really appreciate your prayers as well. that is so sweet. we rely on prayer for every decision over gracyn. God always leads us down the best path. I couldn't last a day without His guidance.
How do you get started with Percs? just call his office?

Yes you call and they will send you a packet of the info Dr Nuzzo needs for the evaluation.
God Bless

GL i cant think of a better idea than researching grants etc online. Such things DO exist. May I suggest putting together a formal letter of request & cover letter. Do it before you're asked so that it can be well thought out. Are there any in-state possibilities? You can also inquire of ur insurance co/the hospital u wanna go to
God Bless