I’m sure what has possessed me to ask for medical advice on here but hey, here goes.
As a lot of you know I crashed in July and put a nice hole in my arm – cue nerve damage and loss of function in my hand and wrist.
A couple of months on and its not come back yet, so next on the list of things my consultant wants to do is a tendon transfer; from the underneath bit on my wrist, to my thumb so that I’ll be able to straighten it again. We’ve decided to hold off until early december (to not disrupt uni too much, and to give it a bit longer to fix on its own), but realistically I have to have made a decision by the beginning of November (yes I know, ages away!).
I’m pretty sure that I’ll go ahead with it, but still have some niggling doubts as to whether I should (yes I will discuss these with the appropriate medical professional nearer the time!), but my lack of decision means that its playing on my mind a lot.
So thought I’d consult singletrack – has anyone else on here ever had a similar procedure? what are your experiences?
Advice/thoughts/randomness from anyone with experience / doctors / someone that knows nothing but still has an opinion is welcome!

my 8yo son is about to get a similar op, tendons taken from his wrist and put in his foot (knocked down by a car)

Docs say it is quite a major op, but worth doing at his age.

Just waiting on the skin graft on his foot to heal 100% and he’s good to go

Hope your son gets on ok and has a speedy recovery! 🙂

Well I thought I’d resurrect this thread seen as I only had 1 reply (hope your son is getting on OK top dog!) and it’s now 2 weeks ’til I see the consultant again; there has been some improvement in my fingers in the last few weeks, sadly not in my thumb so looks like its still going to be my next option…

Im not an expert but my wife is… Consultant plastic surgeon so i’ll ask her!

Do you have a radial nerve palsy?

Thanks!
Don’t think they’re entirely sure exactly what the problem is – they thought I’d severed my interosseous nerve but surgery said otherwise 😮

Sar says that they give good outcomes but needs alot of physio and hand retraining to get full function back and alot of patient motivation also.

Where are you and who is your surgeon?

Your consultant will hopefully give you the best prediction of the likely success of the procedure, but I do know that tendon transfer can be remarkably good. A couple of years ago I had the entire length of my achilles tendon removed and, in a separate operation, replace with the tendon that normally operates the big toe. The result is better than I would ever have hoped. It’s not 100% but it’s not far off and good enough for short runs, mountain biking and 100 mile road rides.
Hope it goes well.

Posterior interosseus nerve is a terminal branch of the radial nerve

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1286712-overview#a0103

Having been waiting since July in hope that things fix themselves I hope I’m motivated enough – well and truly fed up now! Have been doing exercises 6 or 7 times a day since mid august too so hopefully used to the physio! My surgeon is Mr McKiernan in Northampton.

Thanks Jon 🙂

Well hes an plastics hand specialist so hes the right man for the job! Sarah doesnt know him but his online cv seems to add up! He wouldnt reccomend a procedure if he didnt think it would help you.

Shame your not in south wales as i could reccommend 2very good hand surgeons

Good luck

He was the first out of 5 consultants in 3 hospitals to have any idea what do and he seems to know his stuff. Slightly lost faith after my 45min exploration turned into 3 and a half hours, and I ended up worse off as a result but I think I’ll still do whatever he recommends!

Cheers 🙂