Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Date of Injury: 12/15/02
Level of Injury: -dominant side C5, C6, & C7 avulsed. C8 & T1 stretched & crushed
BPI Related Surgeries: -2 Intercostal nerves grafted to Biceps muscle, -Free-Gracilis muscle transfer to Biceps Region innervated with 2 Intercostal nerves grafts. -2 Sural nerves harvested from both Calves for nerve grafting. -Partial Ulnar nerve grafted to Long Triceps. -Uninjured C7 Hemi-Contralateral cross-over to Deltoid muscle. -Wrist flexor tendon transfer to middle, ring, & pinky finger extensors.
Surgical medical facility: Brachial Plexus Clinic at The Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN (all surgeries successful)
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." ~Theodore Roosevelt
Traumatic peripheral nerve damage is a major medical problem without effective treatment options and in which diagnostic approaches have been static for decades. Even in lesions with the potential for spontaneous recovery, functional restoration occurs slowly, thus impacting quality of life for these individuals and increasing the time to identification of individuals in whom prompt surgical intervention is needed if recovery will ever occur.
Results
Results provided in this manuscript indicate that 4‐aminopyridine (4‐AP), a potassium channel blocker long studied in the context of chronic neurological afflictions, offers significant promise as a small molecule regenerative agent following acute traumatic nerve injury. In crush injuries of the mouse sciatic nerve, 4‐AP treatment accelerated behavioral and electrophysiological recovery and enhanced remyelination post‐injury. In addition, 4‐AP treatment enabled distinction between incomplete and complete lesions more rapidly than existing approaches, thus offering the possibility of more effectively distinguishing between injuries that may require distinct therapeutic approaches.
Impact
The ability of 4‐AP to promote durable recovery and remyelination following acute traumatic nerve injury offers a potentially valuable new use of this agent as a small molecule regenerative agent able to enhance endogenous repair. As constant daily 4‐AP administration is already approved to improve chronic walking disability in multiple sclerosis, transient use for regenerative purposes offers a compelling opportunity for future clinical studies. The additional ability of 4‐AP to enable rapid distinction between incomplete and complete nerve injuries means this one drug can potentially be used to identify lesions in which short‐term treatment with 4‐AP to promote durable recovery would be most likely to be beneficial and also to more rapidly identify individuals for whom timely surgical intervention is required to enhance the likelihood of recovery.
Hi Christopher I want to thank you for persevering and supplying me with relevant research and info facts End of 2016 it was 14 years that I periodically would peep through the forum My son is the one with TBPI and just reading the info you are posting has kept my hopes high. We are from South Africa and America is a long way off , so to have some-one else doing the digging is a huge plus He still has the same pain as at the beginning and still prefer to do self medication versus being half-awake on meds.For the hours you put in THANK YOU
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Date of Injury: 12/15/02
Level of Injury: -dominant side C5, C6, & C7 avulsed. C8 & T1 stretched & crushed
BPI Related Surgeries: -2 Intercostal nerves grafted to Biceps muscle, -Free-Gracilis muscle transfer to Biceps Region innervated with 2 Intercostal nerves grafts. -2 Sural nerves harvested from both Calves for nerve grafting. -Partial Ulnar nerve grafted to Long Triceps. -Uninjured C7 Hemi-Contralateral cross-over to Deltoid muscle. -Wrist flexor tendon transfer to middle, ring, & pinky finger extensors.
Surgical medical facility: Brachial Plexus Clinic at The Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN (all surgeries successful)
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." ~Theodore Roosevelt
Thanks for the kind words of appreciation. The science is there, it'll be just a matter of time before it all comes together. Wise move being cautious with medications, as I've experienced the same "half-awake", which was worse in the end than the pain (if that is possible!).
