Any Peroneal Nerve recovery stories?

[mom444]

Good luck Davey!  Forgive me if you already mentioned this but because your peroneal nerve was severed did they do a graft or did they sutre the nerve back together?  Did you have any scar tissue that needed to be removed or did none form yet?

As for my daughter we are still waiting and just wondering what to do next in physical therapy.  Her PT said that we might be able to see if we qualified to have physical therapy done by our local school district, that way a therapist would come to the house and we would not have to pay copays.  Boy, I had no idea how much red tape it involves!  First of all, the entire family would have to go through a psychological evaluation!  Then my daughter would have to be evaluated by a psychologist and then have  have someone go sit in at her at nursery school and see how she gets around and interacts with the other students.  It seems a little too creepy to me seeing how the problem only involves her foot and thankfully does not affect her psychologically or mentally.

There does not appear to be any dorsiflexion yet in her foot and it is 5 and a half months past surgery.  We keep hoping and praying.

[amdre]

Hey all from now on i will be posting my work out sessions on my page. if you would like to view them just click on the world icon under my name and it will take you right there....i had my first day Actual controlled running on land !!!! and it was awesome ....my therapist had to stop me from going to fast a couple times....but for my first time back running in a year i dont feel i lost to much of a step. some soreness and tightness but other then that i was too overwhelmed with the feeling of accomplishment to notice anything else. i should get my brace next week hopefully and we can go fast ..can't wait

[Hamish9]

Hey Andre,

So happy for you to be back running must feel great. Let me know how you get on with the brace when you get it.

Hamish

[Hamish9]

Oh forgot to say! Got a date for my ACL reconstruction and it is being done on 12th February. Can start makng plans for going forward from here now as I have been in limbo land.

Hamish

[amdre]

Hey Hamish

For sure i will let you know. i hear the brace takes awhile to get used. hopefully i can adjust well enough and i will definately let you know how things progress with it.

Daveybc...its good to see you documenting your recovery ...this will kind of play as a documentary of progress as you will keep looking back and realizing how well you have done and how far you have come. this site has been my mental release and has given me alot of hope ....keep focused and we will be here for you.

[amdre]

Just Blogging

Day after my land run...and i have to say my leg feels like it went through a war last night. soreness muscle tightness and ROM in my flexion was difficult to get full this morning. i  iced last night and elevated to lessen the chance of swelling ...and no new swelling which is good i guess. and this morning i massaged heated and stretched and  its starting to loosen up a bit...but still overall a new feeling which also can be a good thing. i think for our run today i may request o do it on a softer surface...not sure if it will help relieve some of the sorness but never hurt to try i guess. also could be because i havent done that type of consistent movement for a year now so. Todays aganeda will be be pool running ..land running and i believe weight trainging we'll see how things go in my daily pre-assessment this afternoon.

Take Care
Andre

Hey Hamis.Good to see you got a date.i know exactly what you mean...your plans to recovery just look so much more reachable once you fix the last piece of the puzzle. After Feb 12th will be the start of a huge progressive recovery.
Have a good day TTYL.

[Hamish9]

Hey Andre,

Was you ACLr a hamstring or a Patella tendon graft. They are going to harvest hamstring tendons to create my new ACL and wondering what impact this will have on my hamstring.

Hamish

[amdre]

Hey Hamish

I had a Patella graft....my OS said told me that it would be a more solid repair with the patella graft rather then a cadaver, or hamstring repair. he also told me that it would be harder to get ROM back with the patella repair so i guess that was his main concern. not sure what this will due to your hamstring but i know a girl basketball player who had blown both her acl's in each leg (at different times) and had a hamstring repair on one and the patella graft on the other. she told me that she rather the patellar for both due to some issues she had playing and running on the hamstring. everyone is diferent so you can't really say but if you are looking to get back into activity or competitive sport  i hear the patella is the way to go. are you thinking of requesting a different approach...or just exploring the diiferent options?

Andre

[daveybc]

mom444, they ended up not having to do the graft.  i got lucky. I had my surgery pretty soon after the injury (7 days) so when they cut me open, there was some damage at each end of the completely severed part that they had to "trim" away. but the two pieces were still long enough to meet and sew together.  When I woke up (and for the first 3 days) all of my toes were curled and i couldnt uncurl them. I'm wondering if that's becauase they pulled the nerve too tight or something. I dont know. But now the toes are fine.  the entire thing is just so damn uncomfortable. I get these crazy spasms in my leg and foot that HURT.  Does anyone else get those? or did they after their surgery? i imagine it's the nerve firing away or something..i dont know.

i just cant wait to get this brace off, and the surgery to heal so i can put some weight on my leg and foot and start trying to walk.  right now when i tak the brace off to re-dress the incision, i cant even lift my leg out of the brace. it's so weak. it literally feels like it was just reattached to my leg.  which in a sense (having two nerves, an artery, and a muscle sewn together) i guess it was somewhat.

anyway...i'm a little too affraid to try to dorsiflex my foot because i'm affraid it will tear the sutures inside.  so i havent really tried just in case. cant wait for the 31st!

i can post some pics of the stab wound after the incident and of my leg after surgery if anyone is interested.  they're a little bloody though. but my girlfriend just sent them to me and i just saw them. how crazy that one day you're fine and minding your own business and the next you're in this entire mess and waiting to see if you'll ever walk normal again.

[Hamish9]

Hey Daveybc,

Go on lets see the pics? I like that sort of stuff. What actually happened, why did these guys attack you?

Wishing you all the best in your recovery.

Hamish

[amdre]

Hey all just blogging

after my Tuesday run Therapists decided on Wednesday to give the leg a break from running motions and just walk through the movements but with explosive force full strides. We also worked on and walked through agility movements  to fimilarize my body with some of my old ways. This was all done after a intense leg workout.Thursday the knee blew up and was swollen to a point that i lost about 10 degrees flexion. We then went through the normal procedures to rid the joint of swelling and this helped. we then called it a day and i was fitted for the Brace.Today the swelling went down and my flexion is back to normal. i have decided to give it another days rest to full recoop  so i can workout properly with no resistance from the swelling at all. On a some what brighter note i have been invited to a Pro evaluation camp for the upcoming Draft. on March 9th i will be put to the test to see whether or not i will be physically able to play at the next level..since i was written off as "Damaged Goods". The good thing about this is that there expectations will be low due to the severity...so it gives me an upper hand because i believe that i will be very close to normal for speed and strength by March.

Have a great weekend ...and dont be shy to Blog everyone its kind of interesting what day to day therapy can be like and the different things we all go through while on a long or short road to recovery. 

[mom444]

Have a great weekend ...and dont be shy to Blog everyone its kind of interesting what day to day therapy can be like and the different things we all go through while on a long or short road to recovery. 

Thanks Ande for encouraging us to "just blog."     Saw your site by the way and watched the video of you running, it was very inspirational.  Keep up the good work.

If I could I would post some pictures online of my daughter's surgical scar, etc. but I dont' think we can upload pictures here...  Or can we?  I still can't find out how to reply to personal messages.

Here is my blog:

I'm just a little worried about possible muscle atrophy in my daugher's left leg where the nerve damage is.  You notice it when she is wearing shorts or tights, but I am trying not to worry.  We let her run around without the brace a lot, she generally only wears it when we go out or when she is at preschool.  The new one is larger and thicker so we have to make sure her pants are wider and that she has wider sneakers to wear with it.

My husband and I decided against trying to get physical therapy from the school district.  It just seems like too much.

I still keep researching nerve regeneration online and in databases.  The general consesus is that nerves regenerate very slowly.  I found this one site that gives a little bit of an overview of peripheral nerve injuries.  It's short and to the point, hope it helps:

http://depts.washington.edu/neurosur/ptcare/periph.html

[Hamish9]

Hi Mom,

I am going to ty and attach. If you click on the 'Additional Options' link below it alos you to attach a file I think. Lets see what happens. I have reduced the size as i see the max size for a file is 128kb. I just reduced the size of the image to 50% and it seems to have reduced the file size to and appropriate size. Hope these images are not too bad but the scar image is shortly after surgery and the staples are still in. Also xray after repair.

I wouldn't worry too much about the muscle wastage as once things have repaired themselves and the muscle starts to work the muscle will build. Andre will probably back this up as he is further along the line of recovery.

Wishing you all the best.
Hamish

[mom444]

Okay, here is a picture of her surgical scar.  I apologize if it is a little gross.

The scar looks longer than the one Hamish had.  Maybe it is because the surgeon wanted to expose the full length of the peroneal nerve because they were not quite sure where the damage was.  The scar continues along the side of her leg to the fibular head.

[j_smi001]

OK Ican add to the scar piccies - again hopefully not too gross, but this is my operation scar that did the dirty peroneal nerve thing!  I have another one showing the muscle wastage but the file was too big - it seems muscle wastage goes with it.  Wishing you all a good week