My Brachial Plexus Injury Story

A few days ago it was the 3 years mark since the accident. Always a scary anniversary. Things seem to keep improving, started doing easy push-ups, more weight exercises and anything I can think of to push the arm. These past two months have been quite stormy in Singapore, and the hyper sensitive areas were definitely reacting. I wonder how is it going to be during the upcoming Christmas in cold Europe. My back issue is getting better, and the core becoming more equally balanced. I've adjusted the bicycle's seat a bit lower, more than I should by my height, but seems to help me keep a better balance on the handlebar so the back stays firmer. My running seems to be getting better too. I'm less scared of hitting my arm against upcoming pedestrians, doors etc. Slowly regaining confidence on my right side :) 

During the first 10 months it will be easier to track progress. First contractions, start flexing the elbow, start moving the arm and so on. I found that around the 10th month it was harder to track progress, I felt the arm abduction was very similar week after week. And I often found myself thinking the arm improvements slowed down. Eventually I came up with measurements that showed me otherwise: The numbers are time references (10th month and 1 week, and so on). As you can see, there's a weekly improvement on the measurements. This keeps my motivation up for daily rehab exercises. I think finding your motivation is an essential key for the best final result, which can be 2 to 3 years down the road. What I do is, pick up a few movements I can do, and measure how high I get on them against the closet and mark them with a timestamp. There are other ways to measure progress, for example, how high you get while soaping your hair in the shower or how far you get trying to open that tal

Oberlin transfer is commonly used to restore elbow flexion. Single or double fascicle can make a difference for you, but from a medical point of view, surprisingly it doesn't. The medical objective is to reach M3, which can be accomplished by just a single transfer from the ulnar nerve to the biceps. Pros are basically a lesser chance of side effects of a nerve transfer happening, like accidentally damaging the nerve or residual weakness in the hand. Cons are, basically, less strength on your elbow flexion. A double fascicle transfer will additionally innervate the brachiallis from the median nerve. Arm movement might be similar to single fascicle transfer (or that's the general believe), but about half of the elbow flexion's strength comes from this muscle according to physicians. To you, his means you might not be able to pull up that box of milk anymore when carrying groceries - although this is just an speculation from my side. A double transfer will be more expensive,

For some time, the main source of pain might be neuropathy. Unfortunately, I have endured a good deal of nerve pain. It is not always the case from what I've read. One year later, I do still have occasional moments of intense pain, but nothing compared to those first months. The doctors prescribe Gabapentin for this. It rarely worked for me, but actually doesn't work for many people. However, I learned a few things along the way that really helped me manage the pain. A note on this, in avulsion cases there's something called 'phantom limb' pain, which probably doesn't relate to what I experienced. There might be a moment when sensitivity nerves start to repair themselves, causing a miss adjustment on how things are usually felt on the skin touch - a mild wind flow could be felt like a cat scratch. For hypersensitive sensation on the skin, I found warmth helped greatly. Hot showers helped to calm down certain areas, but make sure you have the softest towel to dry