My least favourite Arm Saga :/

[Guru]

The epic saga of my **** arm.

Latest update:

I went for my nerve conduction studies on Friday, which was insanely painful!!

But I got the results yesterday and they said that although the nerve is badly damaged it is still in one piece! Which means that after surgery I can make a full recovery

They told me again yesterday that there is a 6 months wait for this operation.....but.............

They are treating it as an emergency now and as such they phoned me this morning and told me I have an appointment for surgery next wednesday!!!!!!! Although I will probably have a massive scar, all things being well (which would make a pleasant change from the recent norm!) I should be fixed in just over a week!!!!

Wish me luck!!!

G

<3

 

[Guru]

What nerve damage do you have?

When good times went bad:

I tore my tricep and crushed and trapped my ulner nerve at kickboxing in february.

Been in agony and signed off on £11 a day ever since

 

[Guru]

Good luck - when's the BBQ?

28th

 

[Guru]

Gratz dude...

What did they do in the test?

I had a bad car crash 3 years ago and smashed my knee to pieces, once they had rebuilt it I struggled building the muscle in my leg so thought there was problems with the nerve.
They did some tests whic included sticking needles in my legs and putting electrical pulses down etc, hurt like hell, nearly cried!!

Ouch!! sorry to hear that mate

Thats exactly what they did to me but on my arm, PROPER hurt like hell!!

Especially the one in the pressure point in beteen my thumb and forefinger!!!!

They were basically electrocuting my arm for the best part of an hour in differnt points along the nerve to see how it reacted.

It's really agravated it, I'm just glad they are treating it as an emergency and getting me the operation so soon

 

[Guru]

More info for anyone interested

 

[Guru]

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THIS MUCH PAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!

IT PROPERLY FEELS LIKE THEY MESSED IT UP

They havent even told me how it went. The surgeon didnt leave any notes and was gone when I woke up. I have no idea what they have done to me.

I will phone him tomorrow for what better be a damned good explanation.

 

[Guru]

My arm as of yesterday:

:/

 

[Guru]

mmm nice, love the bruise.

Whats the scratches or cuts that look like a bar code?

The bruising was like 10 times worse a few days ago It was absolutely horrific. It went all the way from my armpit to half way up my for arm and was purple and looked actual black in places.

The bar code looks to be blood blisters, its not broken the skin there.

A friend of mine in the US had a couple of operations to put a nerve in his arm back into place. He's fine now but he went through hell.

Is it any better now?

Certainly not better enough for me to be able to sleep more than I have in a row for the last 5 months It actually seems MUCH worse that it was before I went for the operation. I've lost a lot of the use of my left hand. The tingling in my hand is worse than ever and feels like I'm being electrocuted over again whenever I touch it. My main concern at the moment is a crippling ripping sensation I get in my wrist when I move my hand.

The swelling has gone down trememndously though. When I can out of hospital my hand was twice its normal size and I couldnt move it.

Still pretty much sure they have messed it up though. Think I will need another operation with a surgeon who isn't so clearly angered at the fact I have done him out of £5000 by not going privately with him and still getting it done by him so quickly after the conduction studies.

When I came out of hospital the surgeon hadn't bothered to write any notes so nobody could tell me if I have had a decompression or a transposition of the nerve because the surgeons page was completely blank.

I made an appointment to see the surgeon again 2 days after the op as a matter of urgency to find out what the hell he had done to me and what happened at this appointment completely baffled and upset both me and my mother who escorted me.....

The surgeon near enough went completely mental at us both, calling us liars when we told him there weren't any notes so we didnt know what had been done and what the aftercare should be. He came in angry as hell actually shouting at us untill he was red in the face! I honestly couldnt ****ing believe it!!

Before he came in, a nurse came in with gloves on and a pair of scissors ready to remove the bandages (was more like a cast than bandages but not quite set) and I said "erm, I'm not here to have my bandges removed, its less than 48 hours since I came out of surgery." She was like oh god yeah we wont take that off then, and went away.

Then he came storming in.....The first thing he said, christ not even said, he was shouting from the moment he walked in loud enough for the entire waiting room of about 30 people to hear... was "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!! i DON'T NEED TO SEE YOU YET, I ONLY SAW YOU ON WEDNESDAY!!!

I explained that I needed to see him because I was in excruciating pain and thought he should see the state of my hand etc and that I needed more information as my notes were blank when I was discharged from hospital. So I didn't have any idea what had been done or how I should care for my arm.

He wen't mental and tore all my bandages off with his bare hands!!!!! No gloves or anything, didnt even ask me to lift my arm, just grabbed it and started ripping them of. Literally hurting me a great deal in the process!!! Tore it all off down to the wound and goes "THERE!!!!!!!! I'VE HAD A LOOK!!!!!! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!!!!!!!!"

I was like "**** what the hell! calm down mate" as he tore away at it.

My mum asked if I had stitches and if they would need to be removed and he didn't even answer her, he simpley goes "SHOW YOU'RE MOTHER THE WOUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as he grabbed my arm and lifted it up.

I asked him what proceedure I had had and shouted "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!!!! YOU'VE HAD YOUR OPERATION!!! AND YOU'VE HAD IT DONE QUICKLY!!!!!!! WHAT MORE DID YOU WANT??!!?!!!" then he stormed out and didnt come back. As he left the room he was actually red in the face neck and arms and was almost shaking with rage!!.

There was much more shouting than this, but I was so shocked I can't even remember it. I didn't have chance to retort and neither did my mum.

He didnt give us chance to ask ANY of the question I needed to ask about after care or anything.

Dont know if I can get it wet don't know when I can start using it. Don't know what the HELL this pain in my wrist is about. Literally don't know anything he wouldn't even tell us if the operation had been a success.

He was a complete ****ing ******* and I will be making a formal complaint against him as soon as my mum is back from holiday. I'm completely enraged from just thinking about it now to the extent that I feel like getting in my car (even though there is no way on earth I can drive for a while) and going and hunting him down and actually battering him half to death.

I have never been spoken to like that in all of my life!!!!! Certainly not without a violent reaction verbally or physically from myself that would make him wish he'd never studied medicine!!! AND CERTAINLY NOT INFRONT OF, AND DIRECTED AT MY MOTHER!!!!!!

My mum said she was bloody glad she had come with me as she wouldnt have believed me when I said he had been so outrageously rude had she not been there to see it for herself.

My mum is COMPLETELY anti-swearing, can't even say crap infront of her, but I shouted the other c word infront of her the moment he left the room loud enough for him to clearly hear and she simply said "You are not wrong!"

THATS how bad it was.

/edit

GOD!!! I am SOOO angry every time I think about it!!!! I Just honestly can't ****ing believe it ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I honestly think if my mum hadn't been there I would have gone for him. I still want to right now ffs. It was the most completely unproffessional, unbelievable and unforgettable thing I have ever been subjected to in my whole life.

/rage

 

[Guru]

Guru, first off, go to a solicitor and have him request a copy of the appointment book for that day and get a complete list of everyone that may or may not have been in the waiting room at the same time as you.

Get the solicitor to contact every single one of them and have them make statements as to what they saw the doctor say and do.

Turn those statements in to whoever (someone else will be able to say what the UK equivilant is) handles cases of misconduct and inappropriate behaviour of a medical proffessional.

That man doesn't deserve to be operating on a dead frog, let alone a living human being. For a surgeon he has glaring anger management issues that need to be resolved before he is let out of his house unsupervised ever again!!!

This sounds like a plan to me tbh.

Only thing I'm worried about is that nobody will have heard it. I think it will have been loud enough for it to have been heard in the waiting room, but we were a fair bit away from it, like down the corridor and around the corner kind of thing.

Still can't believe it, if I wasn't drunk right now after a crackin man u game I'd be livid again

 

[Guru]

bloody hell mate i hope your arm gets better, get that SOB sorted, he should NOT have done that =/

I thought that they HAD to talk to you afterwards,tell you how it went/what to do now etc....********

I know! I thought the same! It's my body after all

Sweet geezes - id of knocked his head off, theres one thing I dont scrimp on is my own health if I had majorish surgery similar to you id wanna know what the hell was going on and a full report and at the VERY least id want the medical staff to help ,there ment to be the experts, hell im that livid at your report on your experiences I want you to tell me the surgens name and where he works ! Ill phone him up and ask him for a statement! say im from a newspaper or something im sure he will get off his arse then

Mr. Taylor
Amersham General Hospital (NHS)
High Wycombe General Hospital (NHS)
Chiltern Hospital - Great Missenden (private)

I will be sending copies of my formal complaint to all three.

 

[Guru]

I am able to touch my elbow now and I can safely say it is NOT fixed at all

The bit I thought would have moved is still there and is still completely restricting the movement.

Gonna go doctors asap to find out whats happened, either its slipped back into place, they have moved the wrong thing, or I was diagnosed wrong in the 1st place. Either way I've been hacked up for nothing

GUTTED.

 

[Guru]

Bit of an update for ya....

Tomorrow morning at 7:30am I am in surgery YET again for my arm.

They are putting a couple of camera's in to find out wtf they did wrong last year.

If there is something very obviously wrong that they can fix easily whilst I'm under the general then they will. Other than that I will need more surgery after this.

I sneakily read a letter from my surgeon to my gp on her computer when she went out the room recently and it said that this surgery carries a serious risk that they could damage the nerve in my arm when they make their incisions as they can't be 100% sure where the nerve is right now as it may have moved since they repositioned it last year.

Basically I'm ****ing it and I just want a few people to wish me luck

I'm still praying they can fix it and I will be able to get back into the fire brigade.

 

[Guru]

I've not got the Doctor in trouble, and quite lucky I didnt cause he's doing this op too!

Depending on the results of this one I will think about some letters.

Do you still have the hypersensitivity that you described in your hand?
I hated that, lasted months.

No, thats the only part of it that was sorted in the last operation. Thanks god! It was horrible lol

 

[Guru]

Survived the op and i can move my hand.

Pretty much in agony will post more about it when the morphine etc is out of my system tho.

They gave me 8 times more morphine than last time!!

 

[Guru]

this is an msn convo i had after my op, kinda explains everything i remember, im still mashed up from all the drugs they gave me. Typing is a chore so cut n paste f t w.

21:02:54 Dan: oioi
21:03:06 Alex: oioi m8
21:04:06 Dan: how do?
21:04:50 Alex: pah
21:05:01 Alex: pretty ******
21:05:11 Dan:
21:05:18 Dan: what did they find out?
21:05:36 Alex: they scraped a load of crap out of my arm and removed the cover of the joint
21:06:13 Alex: and now i am in plaster with my arm forced straight for 3 weeks
21:09:44 Dan: **** man
21:09:53 Alex: aye
21:10:05 Dan: and what do they reckon?
21:10:36 Alex: cant really remember
21:10:46 Alex: they messed up bad
21:10:51 Dan: do they think it will need another op?
21:11:22 Alex: they gave me 8 times more morphine than last time
21:11:31 Alex: still fully battered from it
21:11:32 Dan: that must be a LOT!
21:11:40 Dan: not ****ing suprised mate
21:11:44 Alex: yeah ****in loads
21:11:53 Alex: like 4 or 5 syringes worth
21:12:03 Dan: ****
21:12:08 Alex: cause i was in full on agony mate
21:12:33 Alex: they had put my plaster on too tight!!! so when my arm was swollen up it cut off all the blood!
21:12:48 Dan: ****in numpty *****
21:12:50 Alex: so they had to cut it off and re-do it
21:13:09 Dan: so did they actually fix anything today or were they just insiude checking it out?
21:13:14 Alex: was ****ing horrible
21:13:56 Alex: thought they had proper shafted it cause i couldnt move/feel my hand or anything. I thought they had severed the nerves
21:14:07 Dan:
21:14:11 Dan: u can now though yeah?
21:14:41 Alex: but it was just cause my plaster cut the blood off at the top and the bottom
21:14:52 Alex: yeah i can move it now
21:15:01 Dan: man, doesnt sounds like any fun
21:15:17 Alex: was harsh as ****
21:15:23 Alex: almost cried tbh
21:15:58 Dan: not suprised mate, sounds savage
21:16:19 Alex: i was literally writhing around in agony pressing the emergency buzzer thing n stuff
21:16:33 Alex: till about 4 surgoens came and they cut the plaster off
21:16:49 Dan: mother****
21:16:54 Alex: yup
21:16:58 Dan: so
21:16:59 Dan: like
21:17:15 Dan: is it fixed or? what they sayin?
21:17:36 Alex: wont know till its off in 3 weeks
21:17:51 Alex: they reckon they got it moving tho when i was under
21:17:56 Dan: so they did try and fix it then?
21:18:04 Dan: yeah?
21:18:09 Dan: so it might be fixed?
21:18:31 Alex: not holding my breath tbh
21:18:36 Alex: can but prey
21:18:44 Alex: *pray
21:18:45 Dan: fingers crossed for u mate
21:18:51 Alex: cheers
21:18:52 Dan: prey on that mutha lol
21:19:03 Dan: well,
21:19:11 Dan: thats cool, i thought they were just lookin at it
21:19:14 Alex: lol
21:19:29 Dan: if u had been thru all that and they didnt do **** all and had to go back for next op that would have sucked loads more
21:19:56 Alex: arm is in plaster from hand to shoulder
21:20:07 Alex: it's sooo uncomfortable
21:20:39 Dan: so r u off work for 3 weeks now?
21:20:50 Alex: at least
21:21:05 Dan: will u get full pay?
21:21:27 Alex: for 2 weeks i will
21:21:40 Alex: after that im pretty screwed
21:21:43 Dan: then what do u get ?
21:21:59 Alex: half i think
21:22:21 Dan: that's a bit turd
21:25:42 Dan: mate, hopefully they may have fixed it, that would be cooool
21:25:53 Dan: BUT
21:26:05 Dan: i might have to call u 1 arm bandit for a coupla weeks
21:26:14 Alex: yeah man would be so happy
21:26:18 Alex: lol
21:26:33 Alex: fine i'll call u bum bandit
21:27:00 Dan: well fingers crossed for u mate
21:27:03 Dan: hows the family?
21:27:19 Alex: ***
21:27:40 Dan: sweet
21:28:23 Alex: gonna have to go lay down mate, pain killers runnin out and i think i might puke
21:28:38 Dan: cool
21:28:43 Dan: inabit mate
21:28:57 Dan: hope u feel better soon
21:29:13 Alex: ty m8
21:29:15 Alex: bbfn

 

[Guru]

Latest update

Thought I'd posted this a week ago, but I guess it didn't work.....


Can't ******* believe this tbh, it's worse again

They have taken my cast off and I now have much less movement than before.

When they took it off I completely freaked, I couldn't move it at all and I just broke down crying, it's all been too much!

I had so much I wanted to ask them, like what the **** they discovered and why on earth they haven't put things right. They said they had taken samples of the inflamed material in my arm and I should have asked the results as it's been 3 weeks, but I was in such a state I couldn't even think properly.

They have signed me off work for at least another month and I have to have physio every other day to see if I can get my arm moving again

They must think I don't ******** need to pay my rent or something!

They told me I'd be back at work within a week, as in I should have gone back this Wednesday just gone.

Don't know what I'm gonna do tbh, I'm gonna have to try and get an office job, or something much less physical cause I can't lift anything properly. I can't see myself being able to go back to my current job tbh. I can't bend my elbow more than 90 degrees, and still can't get it near straight. Still in agony every day.

I ******* hate this

18 months I've been suffering and still no end in sight.

Doesn't look like I will EVER get back into the fire brigade.

Sorry for the rant. Just feeling down and needed to vent.

G

/edit wish you could edit thread titles on this forum. Not much good news in here.

 

[Guru]

I'm going back under the knife for this one tomorrow with a new surgeon!!

Wish me luck!

G

 

[Guru]

What came of the complaint to the abusive surgeon after the 1st op?

I didn't end up complaining in the end, I figured it was his word against mine and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of pursuing it only to be shot down.

I just really hope this guy can sort me out.

 

[Guru]

Just been re-reading this thread and it’s left a lump in my throat

I’ve been suffering with this ever since, haven’t been able to straighten my arm for almost 14 years now :’(

Finally found a surgeon who doesn’t think I’m a lost cause. When I first saw him and explained how things have been he said “Jesus Christ! I can’t believe you have been living like this for all this time” that almost brought me to tears because it’s been hell tbh. Especially now I have three kids I can’t physically give the energetic, capable, fun and happy father they deserve.

Living is an overstatement, but I’ve been surviving.

I’ve developed arthritis since all of this started and now my hands, wrists and spine are affected too, but it’s always been my arm that’s been the most physically restrictive thing.

I have another operation on Tuesday, with this new surgeon, he says he probably won’t be able to improve the fact that I can’t bring my arm up to my Shouler etc, but he thinks he might be able to make it so I can straighten it again.

This would be life changing tbh, you take it for granted that when you relax your arms and they drop to your side that it isn’t agonisingly painful because they just naturally straighten. There will be so many things I used to love doing that I might be able to finally do again if I can straighten my arm.

I’m not holding out much hope and I’m pretty terrified of having another operation if I’m honest, but at least the surgeon thinks it’s worth trying.

My kids have been acting out at school and stuff lately and when asked why they said because things make them sad and angry. When pressed for more detail by their school and their mother they cited being worried and upset about my situation as a major factor in why they are acting out so I hope for their sakes that this time it works and I may be able to be less depressed and physically more engaging with them.

I’m scared if I’m honest and Thats unusual for me, but I can let people know how it goes afterwards.

Cheers,

G

 

[Guru]

Thanks for the good luck wishes! I really hope it goes well this time!

Good luck!

If you want a thread title change, let me know

Haha yes please, been thinking that but wasn’t sure what to put.

Maybe just “My Arm” or something lol

Thank you