Reinaldo Andrés Yegres Ruiz. Thoracic Syringomyelia and Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Published by ICSEB at 13 September, 2007

Date of intervention: September 2007

Reinaldo Yegres López C.I. 5.083.465 and Carmen Ruiz de Yegres C.I. 5.081.971, from Venezuela, parents of 11-year-old Reinaldo Andrés Yegres Ruiz, want to tell about what we have gone through when we discovered the illness my son had.

It all started in the month of July of 2006 from an umbilical hernia operation. The insurance claimed as a requirement for the guarantee letter, an abdominal scan. In this same scan they detected his renal pelvis and left kidney bigger than the normal size. The specialists saw it and also found his bladder enlarged its size (neurogenous); united with a gastrointestinal problem (constipation) this boy was suffering since a long time ago.

A child nephrologist had the idea of sending the boy to have an MRI done of the whole column, from which they diagnosed a dorsal Syringomyelia (in the month of September 2006).

In this moment we didn´t know anything about this illness. The child Urologist that treated the boy sent him to repeat the test to verify the diagnosis, confirming the same.

After having some knowledge about this illness and finding out that it did not have a cure and as it progresses the boy´s health was going to deteriorate.

For us it was a terrible impact, a boy who looked so healthy had suffered such illness.

Here in Venezuela various specialists saw him. One of them said nothing could be done, another one said the best option was to introduce a Catheter in the spinal cord and the other one thought of operating him in the head, although he told us very clearly that he did not give us any guarantee.

We felt powerless without knowing what to do, asking god to illuminate us; he listened to us, the boy´s uncle sent us the information from internet showing he had found out about an institute in Barcelona (Spain), where there was (Dr. Miguel Royo) with his team that had a few years of studying about this illness.

We got in contact with the Institute coordinator, Mrs. Isabel Montesinos and sent her all the tests she asked for.

Dr. Royo and his team did the evaluation and confirmed the diagnosis of Syringomyelia and Idiopathic Scoliosis and they informed us that the boy was a candidate for the minimal invasive intervention.

Apart from their opinion, we also consulted in the EEUU but the answer was not satisfactory.

We started to think of the possibility of taking him to Barcelona, we did not have sufficient assets but we overcame the difficulties and a year later, in September 2007 we took him to Dr. Royo. The doctor examined him and we noticed that the boy had less strength in the right hand and something that impressed us very much; was that he still conserved the Babinski reflex. Normally this reflex exists in very young children but not in an 11-year-old boy. This was due to the illness he suffered in the spinal cord of the vertebral column.

At the next day on 13/09/07, Dr. Royo and his team operated the boy and at the next day when he went to give him the discharge from the clinic, he examined the Babinski reflex again and it had disappeared. 15 days after the operation, Reinaldo has recovered his strength in his right hand and has been correcting the constipation problem.

We thank god and will be eternally grateful to Dr. Miguel Royo that with his perseverance in the study of this illness, has discovered the cause and how to avoid its progression.

This doctor has given the opportunity to our child to keep growing as a healthy boy and hopefully other people who suffer this same illness have the opportunity to know that there is a solution.

This is our testimonial for the world.