after op symptoms
Hi Dr bland, I had my op on 12th jan i am still getting symptoms tingeling, some pain waking up with dead hands and though it looks ok my the area were the scar is is at times sore, is this normal and is their anything i should do, my gp is not interested with whats going on, thankyou ,m gregory.
Soreness around the scar is not unusual but still being awoken by tingling/numb hands at night is not right after surgery on a grade 3 CTS and I should take another look at this. If you can make it in to my clinic first thing on Monday morning - between 8:30 and 9 - I will re-test it and see what the ultrasound imaging looks like. JB
OK depending on Canterbury traffic I usually get in between 8:30 and 8:45. See you then. JB
Hi Dr Bland i have an update on the ulnar nerves, yesterday i saw a extended scope practioner but not a surgeon at margate she has decided that im to have physio and not an operation which you thought i needed so im abit worried about it seeing as i get a lot of gripping pain, tingling and dead hands every morning i would really like to know what you think, nerve measurements were 23 & 15,also i have had to ask for a change of hospital to canterbury because of the big problem of trying to get to margate via public transport, thanks michelle.
I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought surgery was the right thing for your ulnar nerves. In fact I am very uncertain about the best approach to ulnar nerve problems at the elbow. The state of the research evidence for ulnar neuropathies is much poorer than that for carpal tunnel syndrome and it seems to me that there is no clear consensus that surgery is in fact any better than conservative management. As with CTS, surgeons themselves tend to be more convinced of the merits of surgery than I am. The best study I have seen is a dutch one where the surgically and conservatively treated groups had roughly comparable outcomes but neither were spectacularly successful so it's a difficult problem. On the whole I would have preferred that you saw one of the hand surgeons themselves but I don't control the way they run their clinics of course. See how it responds to physio for a few weeks. We can then measure it again and if it is deteriorating despite attempts at conservative management then I think there are reasonable grounds for operating. JB
Hi dr Bland, i have had trouble getting my questionaire done as my gp hasnt ever got enough time to do that as well, though i can say it looks good and my symptoms only seem to be from the ulnar nerve for which i will be seeing mr weatherall in two weeks, thanks michelle.
You can always add another symptom severity score yourself here on the website - you have already done one new one in March. That is designed to track median rather than ulnar nerve symptoms but it is still interesting to watch changes as the two problems do have some features in common. It will also be interesting to see what Mr W thinks about further treatment of the ulnar nerves - do you think they are getting better, worse or staying the same yourself? JB
i think it has worsened a little more on that left arm, more pain, lose of feeling and im dropping things, im not sure who the man was that i saw but we made the decision to go ahead with the op, both arms are to be done starting with the left one should be around september roughly. I would also like to thank you as its because of you that this is all getting sorted out my gp though busy is not the best and it would have been a battle to get him to listen so thanks again Dr Bland and i will let you know how it goes, michelle
At some point we would like to do a study of the outcomes of the ulnar operations but we are a bit overloaded with CTS patients at present. Hopefully yours will help. JB
Yes thats fine with me i have a date now for the first op which is 10th september. michelle
That's about 6 months since we tested it and demonstrated the ulnar nerve problems but by the sound of it only a fairly short wait for surgery once the decision was made to operate so our orthopaedic surgeons must be working hard to control their waiting lists. I will be interested to hear if the surgery helps. JB
Just to add you thoght i may have recurring carpel tunnel i dont know if that makes a difference, michelle