United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I see Dr. Kim out of Houston, TX for my brachial plexus problem. I Was going to Mayo clinic but they were not in network with my insurance. Dr. kim has performed nerve transfers and also reconnected my nerves to my spine. No function has really came back after 15 months or so. The only thing that has came back is my tricep a little bit. Now I recently just had a trapezius flap transfer to my humerus. Now I must wear a airplane splint to keep tension off the flap until healed. Sometimes I wish I went to mayo clinic. Everyone on here that went there has had positive things coming back. Dr. Kim is a great doctor. He told me I would never move my fingers or hand again but he also said he is not god and never to give up. It makes me wonder if mayo clinic would have helped me better and my life be better just because insurance wont pay for it. Does anyone have this same problem with there life and does anyone else see Dr. Kim as well?

Thanks
Nate

nate,
i'm 4 months out from my accident so i guess i'm relatively new to this whole thing but one thing i decided a while back was to try to do the best i could under my circumstances and to give myself a break and not play the 'what if' game in my head. going forward there are going to be a bunch of options and i'll take my pick of them and hope for the best but i'm gonna spare myself of the 'maybe if i had done so and so it would be different' stuff. i just view those type thoughts as a kind of self torture. anyway, seems to me you could still visit mayo if it would help you feel better. good luck with your recovery. doug

Thanks for the reply. I always wonder what people like me are like in the future with little movement in there arm. Like what they do for a living now and how hard was it to find a job like this. So many things run through your head.

i am fairly new to this injury as well. i am only 7 months out. May 18,2010. when i was 4 months out, my arm and hand were so painful i could not function hardly at all. i had a little arm use but almost no hand use. now that i am 7 months out, i am learning that progress quits for a while, then all of the sudden, something just starts working a little bit more. you think WOW!! i can make a soft fist for the first time or i can squeeze my fingers together on my good hand with my bad hand. not very hard, but i can do it. progress is sloooowww but it will come. my injury was a bpi stretch, but traumatic all the same.

I know you are in a frustrating situation. You have been correctly told that you have 6 months to have the nerve transfer completed, after that your nerve "window" is then closed. I was in the very same situation with my insurance. My insurance would not cover the Mayo Clinic but Dr. Li at Wake Forest University was on my insurance list. Dr. Li told me he could do the surgery and I consented. I was so nervous! I waited and waited, and 10 months later I started to get some use out of my injured arm. I didn't even know it would move until I was in a pool and realized it would move. I seized the opportunity, joined a gym which had a heated swimming pool and 5 days a week, I got up early and made my way to the gym to "work out" my TBPI arm. Little by little it started coming back. I still had the question mark in the back of my mind of whether I had done all that I could do to get more use out of my arm. I scheduled an appt. at the Mayo Clinic. When I met with Dr. Skinner and the team of 4 other surgeons there, they expressed to me what a great job Dr. Li had done and that they had much respect for him. We discussed the possibility of a tendon transfer, but that was to be considered at a later date. When I had my next meeting with Dr. Li, I told him all that I had done and brought the reports back. The Mayo is obviously the best team of assembled Doctors together to deal with BPI, but they are not the only ones which can produce good results. I am pleased today and live a good quality of life. I realize my arm will never be close to what it was, but I do now have use of it limited, and I am thankful for that.

I wish you the best of luck in the future. Feel free to contact me if I can be of help to you. I live in NC. I am 2 1/2 years post accident right now.

Thanks for the advice everyone. To hilltop, before this last surgery I had, I was starting to make my arm move. I would try to squeeze any part of my arm just to see if anything has came back. Well I noticed my arm would move, nothing major but it would just move when I squeezed. I can feel like I am squeezing parts of my arm but then you think In your head is my arm moving just because my trapezius is moving it. When you have a emg done things show up but not what you want. I found it hard to squeeze certain spots as well when put on the spot to do so on the emg ha ha. Things have came back but I believe atrophy has progressed to far for some thing to come back, but you never know. What do people do for work now and has it changed your job career?

Thanks
Nate

Hi skateunit. I was just reading through the replies to your post and just had to chime in about never giving up hope. I just had surgery at the Mayo Clinic, 32 years after a car accident that left my right arm paralyzed. I've led a full and happy life even though at 17 years old this trauma happened. At 17 you wonder "who's gonna want me like this". But let me tell you, I've been married to the same guy, that I met after the accident, for 28 years now and raised a beautiful son. I've worked full time my entire life in the printing industry . . . started out in a vocational course that taught me how to type with one hand. You can do anything you set your mind. Don't let anyone discourage you. I agree with the other post about avoid the self-torture of the what-ifs. Good luck to you.

Pat

Oh - by the way. You can still ride a motorcycle. My husband just modified a Honda Shadow Trike by putting the controls on the left side and installing an auto-clutch. It's awesome but I won't be riding anytime soon with all the surgeries...may have to wait until spring/summer.