United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

hey ellen
i am 10wks post surgery with dr belzberg at john's hopkins in balt md.. the good dr did do the exploritory with the understanding that he would repair all that he could depending on what he found. this saved repeating the opening of the neck and general anastesia plus saving that regeneration time. he has long days, 8-18hrs, but feels it is worth the effort to operate once. i had 3mri s done before seeing dr belzberg but he felt it only gives a clue not difinative info. he did have me get a very thourrow emg done by a dr that he works with. from what i gathered from that was there are some specific values that they looked for in my neck that would show regeneration or avultions. johns youth is a BIG plus even if it is a severe injury. dr got me on the table with in 4wks to keep me in the 3-4 month window that he likes. from my reading there are, like you said, lots of diagnostic aproaches to tbpi but only one sure way. the 3 mri's that i had were a 2500 dollar waste of money. i will say, just to muddy the water, that cedar sini hospital claims to have 100% acuracy with mri's but most sources say it is more like 50/50 [a toss of a coin]. i felt that doing it all at once made the most of my time as i had already made up my mind that i would persue surgery at least once. hope it goes well for john what ever you decide.

Yes, I got more or less the same picture from my surgeon (well my mother did, as at the time I wasnt really understanding much around me): basically the only way to clearly see the damage is to go and explore surgically. The MRIs and nerve conduction tests do not tell the whole story, and can also lead to the wrong conclusions.

how bad was your ingury

Nerves in continuity. Very serious neuroma to posterior chord. My surgeon left scar tissue well alone. Basically stitched me up again without repairing anything. After 2 years had 2nd surgery: tendon transfers to restore wrist and finger extension. Now after 3 years I would say overall movement is very good.