Hi Swimtime,

I am so sorry to hear about the nerve damage. I am going to be a butt-in-ski with suggestions having gone through a nerve injury myself. Forgive me for being more forward than usual. I do not want to add to any anxiety, just want to be sure bases are covered. Nerve injury is a weird thing to deal with.
I am very glad they were able to bump up his eval so you know what is going on. Also glad physical medicine is going to be on board. They will be a big help.

My questions, How do they know it is regenerating? He might need serial EMG to determine that. If atrophy is worsening that is a concern. Were they able to pinpoint where the lesion is? this is traditionally difficult to do with NCS/EMG. Are they sure it is not hardware or scar impingement? How the heck can they tell without looking? I am assuming they maybe determined some of this from the sensory function being intact but not the motor? That is actually kind of surprising as those fibers run together.

Physical medicine with ultrasound credentials may be able to follow that nerve with an ultrasound machine and see where there is a problem and if anything needs to be done.

Plastic surgery that does peripheral nerve work (if they do scratch collapse testing) can figure out exactly where the issue is.

I ask all this because TIME LOST IS MUSCLE LOST. If he needs any kind of repair or release so that nerve can heal there is a window for that after which motor function recovery is much less, or unlikely, to recover. Nobody wants him to miss the window. There are amazing things that can be done should he need intervention besides time. Hopefully he just needs time.

Maybe go see a peripheral nerve specialist. The plastics people with fellowship in nerve evaluate and treat exactly this kind of problem. It never hurts to get information just for back up. God knows it is justified at this point. Peripheral nerve is an odd enough thing not every specialty knows enough about evaluating or treating it.

You are right on the spread issue, from literature I have looked at says the problem does tend to stay more local.

I am sending hugs and Kleenex,