Hi Nolina,

I had bi-lateral pec minor releases in 4/05. The day before, I had a nerve block done on the left side pec minor to determine if I was going to get any relief from the procedure. It was great that day and into the next - so surgery was scheduled for 4pm that day. I believe it was an hour and a half planned for the procedure, but when Dr. A got in there, he found an 'extra' scalene muscle on the left side - so that was removed, making the procedure longer than expected.

It's interesting to note that the left side - which had the most work done on it - had NO bruising, little swelling and didnt hurt much at all. I think the nerve block kept everything inside there 'calm'. While my right side was gnarley looking, black and blue, swolen and HURT. The nerves were ****** for many weeks afterwards.

I stayed overnite in the hospital, flew home to FL the next afternoon, and was even cleared to push my luggage, as long as it was PUSHED (not pulled) and directly in front of my body. Sis picked me up at the airport, and for about a week I stayed in my jammies, was able to shower and wash hair in a modified way. Needed lots of ice!! I STILL use ice nearly daily on the surgery sites.

I think it's helped in that it's keeping the pesky muscle spasms in the traps and scalenes to a minimum. However... ...I feel that my triceps and biceps are being torn, trying to compensate for the loss of 'stability' the pec minors give the arm when using it for lifting away from the body. Hope that made sense. You are going to lose functionality - you'll never be able to do things where you need to 'press inward' against your arms (like isometrics), like picking up a child. Weigh the benefits (pain reduction) against the pitfalls before you decide to do this. If I had it to do over again, I'd not have done the pec minor releases... but done repetitive nerve blocks.

All the best,
Anne