United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

help. i suffer from chronic bracial nerve pain due to sleep positioning problems. i feel like there is a line of fire shooting out my arm. Absolutely no position is comfortable... standing, sitting, lying...you name it.Alcohol is the only thing that numbs it, abiet temporarily. My chiro can't sem to help. Anybody?????????

if i sleep with my arm by my side, i will wake up with my hand on fire. i tried proping it up on pillow,
and that help some. a friend made me a jig for i could position it pointed straight up. this helps a good bit only when i sleep.i wake up and some times i have hour of releif from burning. some times i hang it when i watch tv. typings a bear, lost use of my right arm on 12/25/04 now i'm left handed.
pic of jig. my face is altered. dont want to scare anyone.

http://web.infoave.net/~tz750/hanging.jpg

wrist support is to keep my wrist from flopping over.

Hi there,

I had my bpi due to a motorbike accident last july.At first the pain was unbearable to the point I would rather have died at the scene of the accident then live a life with that type of never ending pain. A year on and I very rarely need painkillers (unless ive over done things). I had all five nerves re-attached to my spinal cord within 4 days of the accident by Prof Birch at the stanmore hospital (good old Prof Birch) the sooner the nerves are re-attached the better the prognosis. Ive since had another operation a nerves graph to C7 and have another opp in the autum timer, a muscle transfer. I now live a very active life without pain.

Deanie,

How is it that in England the doctors are willing to operate right away? In the US, the prevailing wisdom is to give it 3 months to see if anything comes back on its own - then if not, assume surgical intervention is necessary. Of course, by then the nerve reimplantation can't be done. It's frustrating!

Ellen

Ellen, Jamie & Gina,
To my knowledge noone in the States is doing peripheral nerve reimplantation yet. Good old Prof Birch, there's an old dog learning new tricks! I think it's just in Rome and in London this is being done so far.
Even without reimplantation, if avulsions are suspected (which would be in any high energy tbpi such as motorcycle accidents with Horners present)the philsophy now in the UK is to operate on the nerves as soon as possible-there's no point in leaving avulsions to their own devices. Only if the injury is thought to be less severe would they wait. But I've spoken to some who didn't get operated on so soon, sometimres other injuries are so bad the bpi is the last thing they come to deal with, sometimes the patient doesn't get referred to one of the bpi centres quickly enough. I think they judge each case on its merits, and it is definitely to the patients advantage to have every bpi doctor in the UK working together and keeping abreast of each others work instead of competing for patients.

One day all avulsions will be reimplanted routinely-or maybe something even better will come along, here's hoping :0)

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I have had my injury for almost five years, and I have absolutely no pain. Honestly, the only times I experienced pain were right after the injury, and after each of the surgeries. Other than that, I have been pain-free.

Linsy

Aurelia & All - I have a Trauma BPI and was nearly suicidal afet my accident and weening off of the narcotics. I had a DREZ procedure (Dorsol Root Entry Zone) to eleviate the sharp fiery tingling going up & down my left paralyzed arm. The operation was done in NC at Duke University. I woke up after the 6 hr operation literally pain free. Now I only have slight discomfort (due to the change in the weather) Hope this helps.