Cubital
It's been over a year since I've posted about my CTS. I had surgery on both hands and pretty much all good now. My question is about cubital and hoping you might have some input. It's hard to say for sure, but I think having CT release helped my ulnar nerve issues or at least in the beginning. It's been a little over a yr since I had the CT release. Several months ago I was starting to have a lot of problems with my elbows. I tried wearing my elbow splints and even rolling out the muscle on the top of my elbow and the tricep area. It didn't seem to help enough. I was about to call it quits and do surgery but decided to try stem cells as I hate doing surgery unless I must.
I had mesenchymal stem cells with whartons jelly they call it, injected into my elbows. Now I'm as skeptical as they come and I'm not sure how you can say it was placebo, but I really did get some pretty significant relief within a few days or a week, can't remember which. This was on November 9th, about two 9 weeks ago. It's not 100%, but a lot better than it was before the shot. Will it continue to get better or is this just temporary, that's unknown at this point. I may very well end up having to get surgery and it was a waste of $2500 but I feel better trying it first.
My question is does this issue have anything to do with inflammation? I know that's a complicated topic with CTS, but wasn't sure if cubital had anything to do with inflammation and how it would be possible for the stem cells to really help if it has nothing to do with inflammation. There are some detailed technical info on ncbi.nlm.gov about mesenchymal stem cells.
I think stem cells will be a cure for a lot of medical illness in due time, it's so darn expensive right now though, to test and figure out what really works.
I never got an email on your reply, forgot about this. $2500 is no chump change, but like you said, CTS surgery is widely done, lots of data behind it and ulnar surgery not so much. That procedure scares me and wanted to do as much as I can to avoid it. I'm very skeptical of everything and don't like to give anything credit unless I'm 100% certain beyond all reasonable doubt. I'm confident the stem cells helped, at least temporarily. I don't think it has progressed backward, but it didn't improve 100% either. It's a lot more manageable now. Before the stem cells, I was ready to do surgery asap. Maybe that day has just been postponed, but at least I can tell myself, I've tried everything known to mankind.
It's probably never really possible to say that you have tried everything known - there will always be someone prepared to take your money to try some quack remedy or other I'm afraid. Keep me posted with how it goes from time to time please. JB
Sorry about the slow reply - I had to go back to the old thread and read through it all to remind myself of your story. My area of interest is carpal tunnel syndrome and 'cubital tunnel syndrome' - which is probably better referred to as 'ulnar neuropathy at the elbow, or UNE' - is a bit peripheral to that but there is a page of the site devoted to it. My view on stem cells for this sort of problem has not changed in the last year or so, they remain an experimental treatment which should only be used in the context of a prospective randomised clinical trial. $2500 is a pretty big placeebo :-) UNE is a different entity to CTS with different, and probably multiple, mechanisms which are variably operative in different patients. Surgical treatment is more haphazard and less effectve overall than carpal tunnel surgery and the nerve conduction tests are less sensitive and reliable so it is altogether a difficult area. Good quality ultrasound imaging of the elbow is looking very promising for both diagnosis and prognosis but still needs more work doing.JB