[recniabsal]

Hello my name is Nick. I am from Utah and I am 26 years old. I got a blood clot in my right arm in early summer of this year. I had a rib resection through my armpit July 12th. My right arm is still weaker than my right but I can see everything is healing and getting stronger, grip, shoulder, and movement. There are 2 muscles in my arm that are healing very slowly. My bicep and tricep. My bicep is the one with the slowest progress. There's different workouts I've been trying to strengthen them. My bicep can barely curl 10 lbs. I curl my arm with no weight, I put a bungie in a door and curl it. I'll also do stretches I see on youtube and read about on the internet. In January it will be 6 months since my surgery. I am afraid my nerve that controls my bicep is damaged from the surgery. My surgeon who is supposedly the TOS expert in Utah said I need to workout with low weights and keep working out until the muscle gets tired, then rest kind of like basic weight training. But I believe I should see more improvement in 5 months than the ability to curl 10 lbs. Can I get some advice on what I can do to speed up my healing or should I look into medical help for a damaged nerve ? Thanks in advance for any advice and input.

[LiveLoveandTrust]

Originally Posted by recniabsal

Hello my name is Nick. I am from Utah and I am 26 years old. I got a blood clot in my right arm in early summer of this year. I had a rib resection through my armpit July 12th. My right arm is still weaker than my right but I can see everything is healing and getting stronger, grip, shoulder, and movement. There are 2 muscles in my arm that are healing very slowly. My bicep and tricep. My bicep is the one with the slowest progress. There's different workouts I've been trying to strengthen them. My bicep can barely curl 10 lbs. I curl my arm with no weight, I put a bungie in a door and curl it. I'll also do stretches I see on youtube and read about on the internet. In January it will be 6 months since my surgery. I am afraid my nerve that controls my bicep is damaged from the surgery. My surgeon who is supposedly the TOS expert in Utah said I need to workout with low weights and keep working out until the muscle gets tired, then rest kind of like basic weight training. But I believe I should see more improvement in 5 months than the ability to curl 10 lbs. Can I get some advice on what I can do to speed up my healing or should I look into medical help for a damaged nerve ? Thanks in advance for any advice and input.

From what I understand, a damaged nerve can take a very long time to heal. Around 8 months to a year at least to see some real improvement. Unfortunately, that means more working PT and waiting in the meantime. I'm sorry everything is going so slowly for you! I would keep at it and as long as you are improving (even slowly). There's really not much to do but wait for a damaged nerve anyway. I hope things pick up for you soon, and happy holidays to you!

[recniabsal]

Originally Posted by LiveLoveandTrust

From what I understand, a damaged nerve can take a very long time to heal. Around 8 months to a year at least to see some real improvement. Unfortunately, that means more working PT and waiting in the meantime. I'm sorry everything is going so slowly for you! I would keep at it and as long as you are improving (even slowly). There's really not much to do but wait for a damaged nerve anyway. I hope things pick up for you soon, and happy holidays to you!

Thank you for the response. 1 to 3 months after the surgery I could not even lift my arm over a certain point and I would lose all feeling in my right arm and shoulder if I went for a walk. Now those things don't happen anymore so those are some of the positive points in my recovery. Also, when I do a curl with a bungie I can feel the bicep muscle strands deep in my arm close to the bone activating so its mostly the outer 70 percent of my bicep muscles that need to wake up. I will just wait it out some more and keep doing research and getting exercise.