United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hello all,

My husband recently suffered a 20 ft fall from a cell tower resulting in a broken femur (surgery to place rod in femur day after accident), multiple rib fractures with lung contusions, compression fractures at T-11 & T-12, and brachial plexus damage to his right arm. We are still unsure about the extent of the brachial plexus damage thus why I'm here looking for info.

He has had significant improvement wince the fall but has plateaued with some limited ROM at the shoulder with very little ROM in his hand and no ability to grasp, make a fist ect. Of all the injuries the most pain has been the brachial plexus injury. He reports the pain as constant sharp pain with some numbness and hypersensitivity along the outside of his arm.

Due to the severity of the other injuries the brachial plexus injury didn't get much attention in the hospital but now that we are home it's the most problematic for him.

He just started outpatient OT/PT yesterday. Any suggestions for other treatments or pain relief?

The ortho surg wants to wait 2-3 more weeks before doing a nerve study, but there has been no improvement in the past 2 weeks.

Hi and welcome to the club no one wants to join, as the saying goes. Sorry to hear of your husbands fall. Each BP injury is different even when sounding similar. Nerves heal at about 1 inch per month. Being that it is his hand this can take some time depending on the severity of the injury. Usually they will do an EMG to get an idea of the severity of the injury. This should tell which nerves are firing and which muscles are receiving impulses. Since he is only 2 weeks out from the fall waiting 2 more weeks to do the test shouldn't be a problem. The good thing is you have already seen some improvement. Continue with ROM as you don't want things to get more difficult to move and stiffen up on him. If I were you I would try to consult with a BP specialist. There are some listed on the resources pages through the link at the top of the page. This is a very specialized area and not all ortho or neuro surgeons have as much knowledge in this area. Sorry I don't have a lot of answers for you but my sons injury is more in the bicep and shoulder. There are many that take various pain meds to deal with the pain. Some seem to have some relief and some not. I have read where heat also may give some pain relief with this injury. But, again Dustin seems to be in the minority here as he does not have pain with his injury.
Good luck!! Keep asking questions. Keep us posted. And I'm sure someone with more knowledge in the areas you are asking will post soon.
Sue

Best of luck to you and your husband. Like your husband mine fell about 10 feet and damaged along with other things his brachial plexus. I would suggest when you have an EMG done be sure and have someone who compares the right with the left. Matt had one done almost a year ago that was not detailed at all! So when he just had his second done last week he found out he has a lot more nerves damaged than we ever thought.
As for pain relief Matt has found no luck at all with things on the oxy level(oxycotin, oxycodone, hydrocodone). And most of the nerve drugs gave him bad side effects with no relief. He is on methadone and a fentanyl pain patch and he gets some relief but still not one hundred percent. The best relief for him is in our hot tub...he spends hours at a time in it.
Since Matt fell he has had NO improvement it has all went down hill for him, he too cannot grasp anything for the arm.
Make sure you do your research on DRS also, we were trusting DRS in our area to find out a year later they had no idea what they were talking about!

Best of luck to BOTH of you!
Beth

You did not give the date of the Injury; but it appears to have been at least 3 months ago.

Helpful information can be found with complete descriptions of Brachial Plexus Injuries in the UK Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery February, 1949 and later. See Website Archived Editions

Sounds as if your husband has a lower trunk injury as I have .Does he have Horner's Syndrome ? See articles on Horner's Syndrome.

A little tip... Do not take pain relieving drugs ! They do more damage than good ! I was on "Distalgesics"
( Described to me as a new wonderharmless pain reliever !) for 8 years and in 1990 found out it was a dangerous drug ! Prescription of this is now banned in the UK !

Having suffered this for nearly 40 years I can tell you the prognosis is not good. The best you can do is learn to live with the pain and keep the affected limb as active as possible.

Thank you for all the info.

His fall was a little over 1 month ago, and we've been home from the hospital about 10 days and the ways it's affecting daily living activities are just now starting to sink in.

I think the not knowing is the worst, for both of us.

We're finding out he was lucky in a lot of ways, based on the fall he took. Now the healing and rehab begins. I'm sure we'll have more questions as time goes on and I'm just happy there is support and resources for us, thank you again.