United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I had knee surgery about 6 weeks ago on my dominant (non bpi side) leg.

While I hate to blame EVERYTHING that happens to me on the bpi, I am wondering if a lifetime of imbalance has led to more problems with the dominant leg.

Who else out there has had knee or hip surgery on the dominant leg?

Nancy

Nancy, What type of surgery did you have? I can totally understand where youre coming from, although I dont have BPI but my son does. However, I had knee surgery a few years ago, and it was pretty complicated. I had a serious accident that totally messed up my knee and I have pins and screws in it and it took a long time to heal. It took me about a year to learn to walk again and the Dr. told me he thought I would always have a limp, BUT HE WAS WRONG!! I worked hard on it!!! I had to rely ALOT on my non injured side, and because of that I think, I couldve overused my good leg to compensate for by bad one. Does that make sense?? Now, I find I have alot more trouble with my good knee than the one I had surgery on. Just a thought...

My surgery was no where near as complex as yours.
I had a torn medial meniscus and it was repaired arthroscopically (not sure of that spelling!).

Nancy

Im sure that BPI's has lots of effects on the body that we arent aware of. I guess time tells as these people get older. Makes me wonder what my son will have to go through, thats one of the reasons I like to read you alls posts. I hope that someone with more info than I have will respond to you. I appreciate all of you.

Nancy, I had a similar surgery but mine was cause by a sports injury, I tore my miniscus(sp) all the way around and it had folded over, so they started the surgey orthoscopically(sp) until they decided it was more serious and had to make a 2inch incision on the inside of my knee

Amy

Hey Nancy,

Joshua's physical therapist told us that a BPI tends to affect how child bears weight when they are very little, and this can turn into uneven weight bearing habits even after they get bigger and start walking. This is one of the reasons she's so happy that Joshua tends to use his BPI arm to support himself, even if he doesn't tend to use it to reach and grab - the fact that he's willing to put weight on it is a Good Thing (tm).

In any case, it seems that BPI is a "whole body" experience

Kate