My Brachial Plexus Injury

My tbpi (traumatic brachial plexus injury) has been diagnosed by a local neurologist as a stretch injury. This conclusion was made three weeks after my accident. My neuro found signal in all muscles, some a strong signal, some weak, and some barely a trickle. This was all figured out after about a 20 mintue EMG. His prognosis was a full recovery in 6 to 12 months. However, when he was telling me this he didn't sound very convincing. I left there with a mixed bag of feelings. A year seemed forever, but a stretch injury is about as mild a form of a bpi as you can get. The next day was my clavicle surgery, so I thought - give me a couple of weeks and then some PT and i'll be on my way to recovery. This turned out to be a very wishful thinking. While there has been some recovery (and believe me, i'll take anything), some muscles just aren't really showing any return.



Over the course of the next few months I have had some recovery. The return is extremely slow. Some of my return has been movement, some has been feeling, and some has been just muscles twitching or flexing. My strength in all of my arm is very very weak. It is almost as if my right arm is just coming out of the embryonic state. According to my physical therapist, my shoulder is supported. There are some muscles still doing their job to keep my shoulder in the socket. Because my grip is still good, I have to be very careful not to lift anything with much weight to protect my shoulder. The main muscles that are not responding are my bicep, brachioradiallis(used in conjunction with bicep for doing a curl), infraspinatus(used for shoulder abduction), and my deltoid. I do have flextion as long as my palm is pronated, once I supinate I can not do a curl even weightless.
It is a very odd feeling to have muscles not work. They feel like dead weight. My shoulder used to feel like it was constantly being pulled on. Now, I don't notice it as much. Either I am getting used to it, some other muscles are compensating, or I am slowly getting some strength in a few of the deinnervated muscles.
In about 4 weeks I will be heading to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. This is the king of bpi specialists. I will finally get some answers as to what is my true prognosis. It is very important to see solid improvement within 3 - 6 months post accident. Otherwise if surgery is needed they will want to do it within 6 months of the accident. This allows for the best possible recovery. My understanding is the muscles start to atrophy so far that after a year to a year and a half, even if the muscle is reinnervated, it may not come back. If we need to do surgery to repair the nerve, or clean out scar tissue, doing this prior to 6 months post accident allows for the nerve to heal and reinnervate the muscle before it has atrophied too far.
Well, that's probably enough for now. I will post some pictures soon to show how far I have atrophied, as well as some of the exercises I do at home on a regular basis. Thanks for reading.