Cubital Tunnel Surgery

Hey everyone...

SO, I just got surgery on Tuesday morning. Its got a variety of names for it. Cubital Tunnel, Cubital Tunnel release, Ulnar Entrapment Surgery, and so on.

Really, here was the problem.

Starting when I was about 17 years old, all of a sudden, I started having a lot of what turned out to be nerve pain in my right arm, and then sometimes it would go numb. It would also swell up, and sometimes I lost complete use of my arm for 20-30 minutes at a time. I ended up having a spell of time where I couldn't even hold my bass bow properly. Then, the same issues started with my left arm. I tried sleeping with braces on my arms and that didn't help.

Over time, the pain stopped and just turned into numbness. I have some sensation but not a whole lot from my elbow, down the outside of my arm, into my hand and my pinky and half of my ring finger. But, another problem popped up because caused by this problem...my muscles started to degenerate, and I was told here was no way I would be able to continue to play music in about 10 years if I didn't get this done, and you can't wait until its really bad and expect the best recovery.

So, the way the surgery goes, is 95% of the time its an endoscopic procedure. Little camera in there, and release the tissue away from around the ulnar nerve (your 'funny bone' nerve). In my case, I was told there was a lot of scar tissue that looked to be from repetitive motion (made sense to me!). If after the surrounding tissue is removed, and it looks like things have become too lose or something else was causing the issue, they then actually move the nerve to the inside of your arm. (This is what I was DREADING was going to happen with me...luckily, it didn't).

So, the whole thing went pretty well. They drugged me so full of valium before even taking me to the OR that I guess it caused amnesia (so said the anestesiologist), and according to my mom I was awake with a big smile on my face when they wheeled me away (I don't remember a thing). The first thing I remember waking up was I had nerve pain in my hand. Which sucked, but was awesome at the same time.

So, I'm pretty banged up and bruised at the moment. That said, I also just HAD to see the stitches in my arm, so I took a look and a picture (for the brave, its posted with a warning on my 'pages' on the right hand side here). I am kind of curious about these stitches, they are like nothing I have ever seen before, and seems like its going to scar pretty bad. I mean, 3 stitches for like 2 inches is kind of strange, no?

This whole experience has also kind of made me been thinking a bit more about my future. I know I wanted to go into something to do with health care thanks to my grandfather helping me out. I was leaning towards nursing, but nursing is so varied and I didn't know which way to go with it (only knew which ways I DIDN'T want to go with it)...but I'm thinking that nursing with something to do with surgery would be pretty awesome.