United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I was in a snowmobile accedent in dec 06 and have tbpi no use of my left hand and shoulder, but great pain. i go to mayo next week for three apt. what should i expect??????????

Hi,
As the saying goes welcome to the club no one wants to join. Sorry to hear of your accident.
Dustin was seen at Mayo. His first appt was an intake analysis, I guess. We saw a dr who asked about his arm and health, ect. Tried to have him show what the arm could do and went over the medical records. Think this was about an hour. Then he was scheduled for an EMG, this was very thurough, lasting 2 1/2 hours. After that he had an MRI, think that was also an hour. You should have or will get an appt card with all the places and times you need to be at your appts. The next day he met with Drs Shin, Spinner and Bishop who also went over an exam of the arm. Checking what he could or could not do. They had other drs and interns ect in the room, must have been about 10 people. They let us know what they thought and what the tests told them. We were then scheduled to return in 2 months which was 6 months post accident. With this appt they also set up a tenative surgery date.
Hope this gives you some idea of what you are looking at. You have chosen some of the best drs. Good luck and let us know what you find out.
Sue

Thankyou for replying back I never realized how much i use two hands in life. I live alone so I have new respect for my parents who I havent always gotin along with God bless everyone and i will pray for all of you. denny

I just wanted to echo what Dustin's mum said. We have been to the Mayo twice and they are wonderful. The first person you see will probably be a neurologist. Then the very thorough EMG's, MRI and X-ray. Then the three amazing docs, and, yes, the roomful of observers, and probably James, Dr. Bishop's assistant.

Our son (age 18) had a tbpi in August 2006 - lost use of arm but fingers working fairly well. We went to the Mayo in November, where they concluded none of the nerves were avulsed, but there were no signs of activity in several nerves on the EMGs. They booked Eric for surgery in January. However he has had some significant improvements and they rescheduled for the end of March. That is ideally about the farthest out from an injury they like to wait before doing surgery, as the neurotransmitters in the muscles start to die.

You are fortunate to be seeing them so quickly after your accident; if the nerves are avulsed, the sooner you get fixed, the better. If the nerves aren't avulsed then they prefer to wait and see if any healing takes place spontaneously. In fact it took 2 1/2 months for Eric to see the first minuscule signs of recovery.On the other hand, they won't wait too long before going in for what they call exploratory surgery, and they will tell you what they are going to look for and what they might do, including the possibility that they might find the nerves all firing when they do the intra-operative EMG, and they will just close you up.

We had a full explanation at our first visit in November of the proposed surgery, the plusses and minuses on potential nerve grafts and transfers, complete with colour illustrations. They asked for our input, and responded with their recommendations.

No pressure was put on us to commit to surgery with them, we were encouraged to go home and think about it and call them with a decision. Which we did. Obviously we are now committed to the Mayo, and happy to say that. Our second visit was even better than our first, not just because of the good news but because they were as amazingly efficient and nice as the first time. I don't know if you are using them as a second opinion or not; we were, and when we asked Eric which surgeon he wanted to do his surgery, if money were no object (it is, because health care is free in Canada), he chose the Mayo docs, because they do at least 50 bp surgeries a year versus the 15 or so that our NS here does.

I'm sorry you're in pain, that must be awful. I hope the Mayo can help you. They're the best! Good luck.


Message was edited by: fortitudine


Message was edited by: fortitudine