United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi everyone - its been 9 months since my nerve graft surgery for the TBPI to my left arm. The surgeon's said that I had a 50/50 chance that I would get some lift from my elbow in the 3 to 6 months after the surgery - I have no lift even in my shoulder but my hand is working at about 50% always has, also my arm has dropped from my shoulder socket approx 30mm.

I am going to see the surgeon on the 21st Jan and I know that he had a couple of procedures in mind (removing a muscle from between groin and knee to transplant over my bicep) if the nerve graft didnt work. My major question at this point is that even though his diagnosis was 3 to 6 months, I'm not sure if I should wait longer before committing to more surgery as I know nerves take their time and I still get twitching in my bicep, shoulder, back etc.

On the other side, I don't want to wait too long to find it's too late to get some sort of positive result through surgery, but still want to give it every chance to heal itself - how long do you wait before considering surgery again?

Cheers John

Tough call mate,best to speak to the surgeon and get his opinion rather than guessing yourself,no harm in waiting if the surgeon says its ok

I too had the same diagnosis after surgery and same result. I decided to not do any more surgery because by that point I was completely worn out of doing the "doctor" thing and just wanted to move forward with a "normal" routine.

I've still no function after almost 10 years and have no idea of the would'a, could'a, should'as.

My advise would be to do all you can physically that your mental health will allow.

Well - a funny thing happened in the surgeons office a couple of days ago, he had finished examining my left arm and shoulder and had returned to his side of the desk to write his report as I put my shirt back on. I think that it's only been a couple of months that I have been able to flex my bicep by squeezing my hand and closing my wrist towards my body, anyway I was flexing the bicep whilst he was writing and he looked up and saw what I was doing - he jumped up and quickly came to my side of the desk to explain that he had attatched my ulnar nerve to my bicep so that nerve regeneration was successful.

He is still not sure why I don't have elbow flexion yet, but he thinks that maybe my bicep isn't strong enough to lift it so I'll be ramping up the bicep building until I go back to see him in July when he has scheduled me for an EMG and an appt with him later in the day - it's my first improvement since surgery in March '09, this injury really is a lesson in patience isn't it?

Cheers John

John, I understand being tired of the surgery thing. I hate surgeries and spending more time in the doctors office after all thats already happened. But if they thought there was a legit shot at improvement by another surgery, I'd do it.

It took about 2 months for me to get a bicep twitch back, and a lot of work to get use. I spent a lot of time at the Y in the pool by myself and used a curl bar a lot with no weight on it. Now I have a 5 lb weight on each side ofthe bar twice a week. I never got deltoid use though. I am still trying though, you never know.