Your nerves are your body’s electrical messengers. They’re responsible for relaying information between your brain and the rest of your body. Sensory nerves detect and communicate things like pain, temperature, and pressure, while motor nerves send messages between your brain and muscles to move targeted body parts.
Nerves have a very delicate and complex makeup and are therefore highly prone to injury. Any time a nerve incurs damage, it can no longer effectively communicate, triggering a loss of feeling and ability to move the affected area freely.
If you injure your hand or develop a nerve-related condition in your hand such as carpal tunnel syndrome, your nerves can have a difficult time recovering. Because nerves have such a complex and delicate structure, they don’t heal quickly like injuries to other bodily structures such as your tendons, ligaments, muscles, or bones.
In fact, if a nerve is damaged enough, it typically requires surgical repair to restore feeling and motor function. At Valley Orthopedic Institute in Palmdale and Ridgecrest, California, orthopedic and hand surgeons Anand Shah, MD, Mehul Taylor, MD, and Adam Amir, DO, lead our team in performing nerve repair surgery of the hand.
This month’s blog focuses on what this surgical procedure entails, including when you may need it and how to best recover from it.
Anything that compresses, irritates, or inflames your nerves can cause damage and subsequent nerve-related symptoms such as nerve pain, tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, and high sensitivity to temperatures or pressure.
Common things that cause nerve damage in your hands include injuries from an accident or fall, medical conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome or diabetes, and autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Your treatment plan for nerve damage depends on the severity of it. If the nerves are still intact, rest and rehabilitation may be enough for the nerves to heal on their own over time. However, if it seems like no progress is being made or the nerves have been severed, surgery is necessary to address the nerve damage.
When a nerve pathway has been completely cut through, nerve repair surgery can sew the two severed ends of the nerve back together. The nerve pathway should reconnect and allow for proper healing.
If the gap between the two nerve endings is too wide to simply reconnect, we may need to graft in a tendon from another part of your body to restore the nerve pathway connection.
As new nerve fibers grow and the nerve pathway regains strength, you need to rest your treated hand as much as possible. The more rest you give it, the more effectively you can recover.
During your recovery, you need to wear a sling or brace to minimize unnecessary movements. You also need to visit our team regularly for follow-up appointments to undergo physical therapy for rehabilitation and to ensure the nerves are healing properly.
Nerve fibers grow about an inch every month, so the more nerve separation you have, the longer your recovery time will be.
To learn more about nerve repair surgery, contact our Valley Orthopedic Institute team by calling your nearest office location or schedule an appointment by using our online booking feature today.
