Poison Revives Pianist's Career.

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Author: Unknown

Health

Dateline: BALTIMORE â€"

One day in 1963, Leon Fleisher, 37, felt the fourth and fifth fingers of His right hand curl up. Fleisher, a celebrated concert pianist, had been rehearsing for a much-anticipated tour of the Soviet Union with the Cleveland Orchestra. Fleisher had to be in top form, but he couldn't uncurl his fingers. The affliction not only forced him out of the tour but also ended his career.

In the years that followed, Fleisher sampled every therapy known to science and pseudoscience. Finally, more than 40 years later, he has found the answer in a drug made famous by Hollywood starlets and rich socialites: Botox. Fleisher has focal dystonia, a brain disorder that makes the muscles contract into abnormal positions. It can cripple muscles in the legs, hands, neck, jaw, or face and is common among people who depend on fine motor skills â€" among them, musicians, surgeons, and writers.

Botox is a diluted form of a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. So powerful is the toxin that a single gram can kill more than a million people.

Physicians prescribe Botox primarily as a vanity drug to smooth crow's-feet and wrinkled foreheads. But doctors have also had remarkable success using the drug to treat migraines, strabismus (crossed eyes), and even hyperhidrosis (extreme perspiration caused by overactive sweat glands). In alt cases, the drug works by blocking the release of a certain neurotransmitter that makes muscles contract. Neurotransmitters are substances that enable nerves to communicate with one another.

Fleisher's dystonia threw him into a deep depression that broke up his marriage. Eventually, he climbed out of his despair and pursued a career teaching and conducting. But all the while, the muscles in his right hand remained petrified â€" "like cement" he says.

Thanks to Botox, Fleisher is touring and recording again. In a review of his newest CD, Two Hands, one writer compared Fleisher's playing to the reunion of an old married couple who had been rejoined after a long, unwanted separation.

Fleisher receives Botox injections every six months, as well as regular deep massages. He told 60 Minutes, "I have the smoothest forearm in the business."

PHOTO (COLOR): His right hand freed from the vise of a nerve disorder. Leon Fleisher has returned to performing.