Can someone please explain this 1mm a day nerve regrowth rule??

I am 1 month post op, posterior microdiscectomy for a C5/6 herniation that compressed my C6 nerve root, which wasdue to an accident 3 months ago.  I had no pain, but weakness in the arm.  Since surgery - my doc said the nerve was completely decompressed - I have seen no improvement in my arm strength, and there is very visible size difference/muscle atrophy in my bad arm compared to good arm.  Especially in forearm, deltoid and teres major.

I have heard that nerves regenerate at 1mm a day.  My question is this:

Q: If nerves grow at 1mm a day, and my nerve root was all that was injured, do I have to wait for the nerve to just heal at the root?  Or does the whole nerve need to be regrown down to my fingertips, because the damaged root essentially killed the whole nerve beneath it?  i.e. will I be waiting 2 years until my arm feels normal again down to the wrist?  Or does it just need to heal over the damaged root, which should only take a month or two??  

Q: I can't feel any difference 1 month post op.  Does this mean the nerve is not healing?  Or can it be healing, but I won't feel a difference until it is fully healed??

Very depressed and frustrated.  I've been doing light weights and exercising but the muscles just dont respond and feel dead.  Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

Tony

[heartspeace]

Tony,

Doctors really can only monitor what your body is doing, and that is not even an exact science. Having had bilateral brachial plexus damage (bundles of nerves that feed your chest, back and arms) it has been three years and while a small amount of nerves have regenerated, I am left with muscle atrophy and constant pain that requires narcotics and nerve block medication along with anti-spasmodic medications.

A few muscles they saw some slight reinnervation, but the deltoid and other muscles are clobbered. Gone. It takes a long time to see if your body will recover for some people it never does because even though the nerve *maybe* growing, it still has to find the right places to connect.

However don't give up hope. It has been a relatively short time for you. You might want to investigate electrical stimulation with your doctors to try to keep muscles from dying. Once they are dead, nothing much they can do or the nerve can do to bring it back to life.

Its a catch 22. If you lose the nerve you can't use your muscle. If you don't use the muscle it dies. If the nerve could grow and find the muscle then you could save it. But you don't have the nerve to reconnect.

In your case it might be easier because the nerve needs to just find the other part of the nerve if it is still alive which maybe very close while the rest of the nerve is still attached to the existing muscle.

They are doing research on directed nerve grrowth, and tissue regeneration - but we are a few years (decades?) off from being able to regrow same dna based nerves and muscles and routinely (read reliably) integrate them back into the body. Read news stories though. They are working on it though I think congress should put a lot more money into it considering the honorable vets coming home with many disabilities from Iraq and Afghanistan making this world a bit safer.