Unfortunately, nerves never recover completely after they have been cut. The degree of your nerve's recovery depends on a number of factors: Age: As with many other things in life, your body becomes less efficient at healing itself as it grows older.
Nerve recovery can take a year or more after spinal surgery to return to baseline levels of nerve sensitivity. The nervous system requires thousands of repetitions and hours to make these changes. It's similar to the process of learning to play an instrument or developing a new skill.
The onset of nerve recovery will start immediately after the nerve is decompressed. However, nerves heal at a slow rate, approximately 1 mm a day or an inch per month. Although many patients notice an immediate difference in symptoms after surgery, results can vary.
Spontaneous recovery typically plateaus at 12-18 months. However, neuroplasticity never completely goes away, and spared neural pathways are always capable of adapting, even years after SCI. The intensity that you approach your rehabilitation with also plays a crucial role in your recovery.
To find out, conclusively, if your nerves are damaged, you need to see a neurologist. He or she will perform tests to determine the health of your muscles and nerves. If there is a problem, the doctor will explain the reason for the damage and its extent. They will follow up by devising a treatment plan.
How do I know the nerve is recovering? As your nerve recovers, the area the nerve supplies may feel quite unpleasant and tingly. This may be accompanied by an electric shock sensation at the level of the growing nerve fibres; the location of this sensation should move as the nerve heals and grows.
Most of the time, the pins and needles feeling is a good sign. It's a short-term phase that means nerves are coming back to life.
Tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, or burning are the most common signs and symptoms of nerve damage after surgery. Numbness is the most annoying and troubling problem caused after surgery. It is basically losing sensation in a particular area of the body that affects a person's lifestyle.
In general, if pain relief is experienced in the three months after surgery, the relief will likely continue. However, in 10-20% of cases, the pain continues until the nerve fully heals. Numbness and tingling take longer than pain to go away.
In most cases, symptoms improve and nerve function resumes to normal within 6 to 12 weeks of conservative treatment.
Once the nerve has been repaired, you can generally expect sensation to come back gradually over a period of a couple of months. Your nerves have an ability to heal and regenerate even once they have been damaged, assuming that they have been properly repaired.
Green and leafy vegetables. Broccoli, spinach and asparagus all contain vitamin B, a nutrient important for nerve regeneration and nerve function. Spinach, broccoli and kale also contain a micronutrient called alpha-lipoic acid that prevents nerve damage and improves nerve function.
As a specialist in peripheral nerve surgery, Dr. Seruya wants his patients to know that after a period of 12-18 months nerve damage can become permanent.
An MRI may be able help identify structural lesions that may be pressing against the nerve so the problem can be corrected before permanent nerve damage occurs. Nerve damage can usually be diagnosed based on a neurological examination and can be correlated by MRI scan findings.
In many cases, supplementing with vitamin B-12 can reduce the pain associated with neuropathy. More rarely, it can help repair the myelin sheath, depending on the cause of the neuropathy. However, B-12's ability to speed up tissue regeneration and improve nerve function can be helpful for some.
In cases of nerve damage, massage therapy can be useful to relieve symptoms and improve the overall health of a patient. If you are experiencing a tingling sensation, numbness, or pain in some areas of your body, massage therapy may be able to alleviate these symptoms.
Magnesium decreases nerve pain. Clinical experience, as well as research in nerve pain conditions such as pancreatic cancer, has shown that magnesium can be an effective treatment for pain.
To achieve full recovery, the nerve must undergo three main processes: Wallerian degeneration (the clearing process of the distal stump), axonal regeneration, and end-organ reinnervation.
Patients may lose mobility below the area affected by the damage. The neurosurgeon can develop a treatment plan depending on the patient's condition and handle the intervention process. The treatment may include surgery, medications, physical therapy, and mental health therapy.
Vitamins B-1, B-6, and B-12 have been found to be especially beneficial for treating neuropathy. Vitamin B-1, also known as thiamine, helps to reduce pain and inflammation and vitamin B-6 preserves the covering on nerve endings.
Antioxidants like CoQ10 and acetyl-l-carnitine can help to prevent or reverse nerve damage, and they help to reduce pain. Antioxidant packed foods include blueberries, fish, beans, walnuts, green veggies, and beans.
Introduction: Peripheral nerve injury is a common cause of lifelong disability in the United States.
Nerve pain often feels like a shooting, stabbing or burning sensation. Sometimes it can feel as sharp and sudden as an electric shock. You may be very sensitive to touch or cold. You may also experience pain as a result of touch that would not normally be painful, such as something lightly brushing your skin.