Post top surgery question- nerve damage??

[mikke]

I know it's normal to have some numbness on the chest, especially around the incisions and nipple grafts. But it's also completely numb/tingly down the inside of my left arm and has been since I had surgery. If I press lightly on the skin on the left side of my chest, a few inches above my nipple, I can feel a strange shooting tingling sensation down the left arm. That's the only feeling I have in that area though.

Do you think this will heal with time?? it's very strange feeling. For reference- I had a double incision surgery almost 7 months ago.

[Keira]

Its not the same op, but the top of my head felt like wood when I had the op to my forehead. Now, 14 months later, the sensation is all back, it took a long time, it sensation usually creeps up on the periphery of the region first and sometimes you feel pain and tingling
when it comes back.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's pretty normal. As the nerves reroute, you get a little crosswiring. (Read some of neurologist V.S. Ramachandran's work to find out why - cool stuff!) Might take a while, though. I still don't have total, complete feeling in all of my chest, and mine was last July.

[trannyboy]

Yes, it is nerve damage and yes, it is normal or at least expected. Whenever you cut the skin without using advanced SEMG to pinpoint nerves and even then you cut nerves in such an intense procedure. The tingling and other sensation are the result of nerves firing off signals and not receiving proper feedback. Your brain receives information that it doesn't understand and is trying very hard to process this information and you are seeing it as random and at time unpleasant sensations. You have to wait for those nerves to heal before this will go away. For reference nerves can grow 1-4mm a day depending on methods of injury, care and luck.  It can help to use warm compresses regularly and to do lymphatic drainage massage on the area. I found most of my pain has disappeared about 18 months post op. I did have complications with a seroma and having a drain pulled too soon.

The other issue with displaced sensation could possibly be is adhesions. The  skin is connected smoothly before surgery but after surgery while it heals adhesions occur when layers of skin fuse and at times putting tension of the skin can pull on one of those adhesions. If it is this the massage can be very helpful. It more likely though to be a normal consequence of severing nerves that hopefully time will heal. Andrews suggestion could be very helpful and you can find books about this on Google books.

->-bleeped-<-boy