United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

TK,
Masen has a tough road ahead of him but he is young and will pull through this and amaze everyone,I'm sure. My daughter also had all 5 nerves avulsed but they weren't able to do the c7 contralateral so she won't regain any deltoid movement. She had her surgery in May of 2006 and already she is able to flex her arm somewhat and move her fingers in a rudimentary way. Next she should get triceps back so she can extend her arm. It's very exciting every step of the way. Be patient and supportive and miracles will happen! Sue

Thank you Sue, that is very encouraging to me, I am hoping for miracles, Masen has proven he is a miracle up to this point, so I have great hopes for this surgery to work. The doctors told me that if Masen were an adult they wouldn't treat him as aggressively because the healing time takes to long, but that Masen has a good chance. When was the first time after surgery that you saw some movement from your daughter? Sincerely TK

TK, the expectation for movement after surgery is completely dependent on the length of distance the transferred or grafted nerve needs to grow to make contact with the muscle. Since nerves grow about one inch per month, you can do the math once you get that info from the doctor. John had two major surgeries at Mayo and for each, it took right at six months before we saw movement. (The initial movement was tiny but got much stronger with continued therapy. The first time, John was in a swimming pool and the absense of gravity made the movement much more obvious.)

Keep us posted!

Ellen

TK,
Like Ellen said, every person is different because of the extent of the injury. It was between 5 to 6 months before Mel saw her bicep actually moving. By doing a lot of pursed lip breathing she could make her bicep flex. They transferred the intercostal nerves from her chest, that's why she needed to "retrain" these nerves to move her arm. Best Wishes, Sue

Masen started walking again yesterday, we also came home and his little friend came over and I think that motivated him, he was pretty shaky but is doing better today. He walks on his tippy toes as it probably hurts to walk flat foot. Although I have seen him walk flat foot and then he switches to tippy toes. What the did was the C7 contralateral, I think that is what you call it, and they connected that nerve to his shoulder muscle and then took some of his shoulder shrugging nerve and connected that to his tricept, I think that is the elbow movement muscle. TK