Hello all, my first post.

Male, early 30s, recently diagnosed with Long Thoracic Nerve Palsy, after scapula winging was noticed and confirmed by EMG. Probably symptomatic for years, but only noticed reduced arm/shoulder function about a year ago. I'm not sure how much time I should give to trying conservative treatment through PT and exercise, or if I should try to get Nerve Decompression surgery ASAP, since delay leads to further nerve compression? According to EMG, the nerve is already dead, I can lift arm to about perpindicular to body, signficant pain about every 2 weeks from shoulder.

Thanks

On our Thoracic Outlet Syndrome {TOS} forum there are some members that had similar troubles.

If you search for the member - towelhorse - or "scapular winging" you will find his posts and what he found to help with the winging/instability.

TOS forum -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum24.html

Hi, and welcome

I don't have long thoracic nerve palsey. I'm sure it's miserable to deal with.

You'll find lots of support here. Probably lots of people suffering with like diagnosis.

See ya around

It sounds like you might have something called Parsonage Turner Syndrome, or Neuralgic Amyothrophy. The most common thing this does is to damage the long thoracic nerve, leading to scapular winging. It can hit on either die, or both at the same time- but the right side is the most common. Generally, doctors suggest you will recover on your own- but usually not quite to 100% of full function. Also note, that it can be a repetitive thing. In my case, it hit my right hand first in 2001. I had a repeat attack in 2006 that hit mainly my right scapula, but left me weak on both sides, and only minor winging on the left side.

I would suggest conservative is the way to go, but exercise in important. Try to get as much function back as you can. Even if a particular muscle is not right, there may be other muscles you can have take over for that function.

For me, I will always have a winging scapula probably, since it has been 4 years since it started. But, my shoulder is a bit better over all than it was in 2006. It is just not what I would say is anything close to pre-attack.

Also, since this is a TOS thread- This is a cause of TOS. I have it myself and it started in 2006 with the winging scapula.