Damage from crutches - looking for advice

[Dave]

Hi, I recently had ACL surgery on my knee and probably from misusing the crutches gave myself a brachial plexus injury. It had been about 4 weeks when suddenly I had nasty pain in my shoulder, followed by my tricep twitching for hours. Woke up and my 4th & 5th digits were asleep, my hand numb, my elbow sore, and excruciating pain all over my elbow, neck, and shoulder. It's been about 5 days now and no improvement. I quit using the crutch on that arm. My orthopedic surgeon says give it 3 weeks and it will be better but after reading about this injury I'm scared. I used to get stingers playing football years ago and have been in whiplash car crashes. What if the real injury started years ago and this was the straw that broke the camels back and made it permanent? Any advice on what I should do? Should I see a specialist immediately, or wait the whole 3 weeks? Any good specialists in the Washington DC area? Is recovery spontaneous or gradual? This is the scariest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. Thank you.

[Kath]

Dave

On this website we have a Medical Resource Directory
http://ubpn.org/medicalresources/

Dr.A.Belzberg is at John's Hopkins hospital and gave a presentation at Camp this past Sept. on bpi and bpi pain.

There are many bpi specialists listed on that page.
KathM

[jennyb]

kath's right, see a bpi specialist if you're worried. But remember many of the cases on this board you're reading about are high impact trauma cases where peripheral nerves have been severed, ruptured or ripped from the spinal cord. Those cases can benefit from surgery and they should be seen/treated asap. Your scenario sounds more like a pinched or crushed nerve so your doctor may well be right. Keep an eye on it, if it's not improving or gets worse see your doctor again or seek another opinion.
Remember, none of us here are doctors and all of our injuries may have the same name but are totally different.
Let us know how things turn out :0) Jen NZ

[admin]

Hi... I had the same symptoms from a dislocation playing basketball. Like yourself, I had stingers very early on and thought nothing of it. I went to an ortho and they said that there was nothing I could do but wait it out but it just kept getting worse. My fingers were falling asleep and I couldn't hold on to anything heavy without dropping it. My biceps would twitch also and I had a constant pain. Like so many others mine was not so severe at first but after a few months of "waiting it out" I could no longer pick my arm up more than 3-4 inches. We didn't know where to go and found a bpi specialist in Houston, Dr. Nath and saw him right away. I had a nerve decompression done and in three weeks could lift my arm up fully. It sounds to me like you have just compressed some nerves pretty hard but it's nothing to put off b/c it can cause serious damage if you wait to long. Don't let this scare you though, you can get through it I promise. I've been through this twice and just hurt myself again about a month ago so maybe the 3rd times a charm! You might want to look into a procedure called an EMG that will test your nerve functioning. Good Luck! We're all in the same boat with you!

[lizzyb]

Hi Dave..sorry to hear about your problem...I go along with everything Jen has said, and the resources directory on here should definitely help you to find an expert in this.

The other thing you should do is try and keep your hand and fingers moving to stop any stiffness. We have recently uploaded a page with diagrams on how to do this on the TBPI website http://www.tbpi-group.org click on the 'physiotherapy, occupational therapy and execise' link on the home page there. The hand and wrist exercises are safe to do, but please check with a physiotherapist before doing anything else, like the stretches, which are also up on the site.

The therapists may give you other execises to do too like squeezing a rubber ball to keep the strength up. (The other pages in that section i.e. ROM and apparatus are still under construction...)

Try not to worry too much...it does sound like you have given yourself a fairly severe compression injury; it's a pity that whoever gave you the crutches didn't make sure you knew how to use them properly! I have seen them misused so many times and warn people now.

Let us know how things progress..
Lizzy B :0)

[admin]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I'll update this on when/if I get better! Cheers