Radial nerve damage

When I had my surgery it was long enough (9 hours) that they put in a blood gas line to keep a reading on the levels. They also happened to either nick the radial nerve itself or irritate it by being to close to it. When I woke up in ICU after the surgery I told them my arm was numb, like I had fallen asleep on it and the nurse told me this was normal. I asked them about it several times over the 5 days I was in the hospital but kept getting the same answers.

About a month after the surgery the pain was bad enough that my arm felt like it was on fire. My PCP finally got me in to see the pain docs and they gave me what is known as a Stellate ganglion block but unlike this article they did not do it under flouroscopy, they just did it in the patient room. I ended up having a series of these over the 6 weeks and while they did stop the pain from time to time my arm will throb and burn for a bit.

Right now it is feeling like crap and my wrist and thumb are killing me. The pain meds do not seem to work on this and none of the others in the past have done a great job either. They did have me on neurontin but then I found out about the possible side effects and a lawsuitthat was in the works. My doc took me off of it and we tried some other meds.

Most of what I have learned over the years with this is that no one will give you info unless you are asking very specific questions. The only way to get those questions is go out and do some research. I have also found many of the meds I have been prescribed are contraindicated to another med I was taking. You would think that the doc writing the scrip would catch it or the pharmacist would. However in each instance it was my looking it up on the net that caught the problems. Not simple ones either. Two of the meds I was taking when used in conjunction cn cause severe seizures or even death. Kind of scary when you think about it.

In the end it is the person who is being prescribed the meds who should double check the indications. While the Docs & Pharamacies should catch the problems, sometimes they miss.