Wish me luck....

[OzzyJohn]

Well it has been 16 months since my last surgery (Mar '09) and in the 12 months immediately afterwards there wasn't a lot of improvement to be seen or felt - in about March '10 I started to get some elbow flexion and with some intense muscle stimultation with a TIMS machine at home I was able to reactivate my shoulder to pull my arm up the witdth of 2 fingers it had dropped - this was bought about because I found a physio who was really interested in getting things on track to recovery. I had muscles spasming that weren't picked up by the previous two physios - we have targeted specific muscles in the back to build up due to wasteage that have pulled my back and shoulder into line.

I have also been doing accupuncture on a weekly basis and it is brilliant.

I am heading up to Sydney on Wednesday to have my first EMG since surgery in '09 in the morning, then I have an appt with my surgeon in the afternoon. I am hoping that we can take the sural nerve which wasn't used in the first surgery to try and reconnect the anterior deltiod for arm and forearm lift, connect some of the supinators in my forearm as I can pronate and have about 50% of my hand use (can move and grip but only just raise fingers),also I believe that removing scar tissue from previous surgeries helps nerves and muscles to function better.

The one thing I have learnt in the past 18 months is that if you have even one muscle spasming then you can start building it up slowly, then it helps the muscles around it to build and soon things start working together - I am pretty sure that the surgery to restore my BPI was successful but because of the muscle wasteage my bicep wasn't strong enough to lift - it was only through massage to keep the bicep limber and slowly building it up that it started to lift.

I'm still a long way from my goal and even that is 50% use back of my arm, shoulder and hand, so i hope the surgeon sees enough improvement to warrant trying to bring the other nerves online, fingers crossed.

Cheers John

[gimpyfireman2010]

Good luck John please keep us posted!