One year into adult brachial plexus injury
M22 had a dirt bike accident on may 17th, 2024. My spine was injured in multiple places ( Right c1 lateral mass fracture, and left c4, c5, c6 and c7 fractures along with a lot of the thoracic.) which has healed well enough but I also had a brachial plexus injury on my non dominant left arm. It has been a little over a year now and I’m losing hope and confidence in the handling of this situation, I have dexterity in my hand and progress has been hopeful there with 50lbs of grip strength coming back along with wrist mobility and even some forearm but no ability to rotate without leverage. As far as the arm and elbow/bicep go there has been almost no improvement in the ability to lift or bend it ( I can move it in the pool). Around the time the accident happened I didn’t get paired up with a consistent nuero who had any experience with this and I was just so grateful to be alive that I didn’t think too awful much of it and they did order a mri and ct scan which they said looked like it was a “stretched nerve” and explained it like insulated wire and it would grow back over time with pt. The thing that scares me more as I look into things is that a Emg or nerve test was never done on me and I’m beginning to wonder if a surgery of some kind would help bring my mobility back or what realistically would be the best path moving forward
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Neuropathy Support Group.
Any supplements/vitamins or anything that would help promote nerve growth would all be appreciated as well
@daltonmaxwell
I’m sorry to hear of your accident/injuries. How old were you when this happened?
Have you recently had a MRI of your cervical and thoracic spine post surgery (assuming you had decompression/fusion surgery)? Have you read the report in detail?
Have you recently been to a neurologist for an EMG/nerve conduction study of your upper limbs? This can identify neuromuscular damage and isn’t there is a compressed nerve root and at what level.
You may have injured your spinal cord and nerve roots in the accident and may have new degeneration/compression since then. If your spinal cord is compressed in any way, you need to have it decompressed as soon as possible because cervical myelopathy spinal cord compression injury can cause permanent damage. If you have compressed nerve roots, you also need them decompressed.
Cervical spinal cord injuries causing cervical myelopathy may not heal but nerve roots may be able to heal if not severely damaged/severed in the accident or surgery.
You may want to look into a SSEP test and work with a nutritionist/dietitian on diet and supplements for nervous system support/nerve health.
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