United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I am new to all of this and am looking for help finding information. I had an arthroscopic surgery performed on my right shoulder in Sept. 04 to repair a rotator cuff tear and labral tear I sustained in a work injury. During my follow-up after surgery it was discovered that somehow they injured nerves in surgery (my axillary and suprascapular). Because of this my infraspinatus, teres minor and deltoid muscles were paralyzed. The last EMG done in Dec. showed "healing" but I can still only lift my arm to about 70 degrees against gravity. I don't know a lot about this type of injury. Does anyone know how long this takes to recover? What is a realistic expected outcome? Where can I get information on injury?

Hi, I had rotator cuff repair surgery but my arm was paralysed in an accident, i subsequently got good recovery because my BPI was mainly stretch. The best thing to do is to see an experienced BPI (brachial plexus injury) specialist, not many docs know what they are talking about when it comes to BPI. If you go to the home page of this site and click on resources, there are details of experienced BPI doctors. It is advisable with this injury to seek experienced opinion sooner rather than later. Some docs are more birth injury experienced and some experienced with treating trauma injuries like yours. Ask away any questions you may have these guys are good people. Good luck,
Dave

Dave,
Tahnks so much for the info. This is very frustrating and it will be helpful to talk to someone who knows about this problem. My current doctor has never seen this type of injury so he has been unsure of treatment protocol. I'm just afraid that if I wait too long, I may miss an opportunity to fix this. There is a BPI center within my state and I am trying to get in touch with them now. Thanks again.
Tami