Arm Pain Post Translab

[sbrn]

My husband had a translab a month ago now and has been struggling with persistent arm pain in both arms.  He describes it as a constant numbness/tingly feeling with aching.  Not excruciating, but constant.  He also has decreased strength and range of motion.  It's not the entire arm,but from the elbow down.  As a nurse, initially I thought the left side was from the arterial line he had in place, but now that both arms are affected that can't be what's causing it.  Sounds nerve related to me, but his doc didn't seem to indicate that this was a common experience.  Just curious if anybody else had experienced this?

[Funnydream]

Up to 1 month post-op my arms felt very tired to the point I didn't want to lift them up while lying in bed. Like lifting the remote and using it made my arm tired.

I'm almost 2 months post-op and yesterday when I got the leaves up in my back yard. I could only do 10 bags of leaves. I did 7 bags the day before that. And before surgery I could do my whole yard in one day. About 35 bags. Very old neighborhood with huge trees.

I feel I'm getting better every week that passes.

I'm still sore on my right side hip and under my arm pit from laying on the surgery table for 16 hours.


As far as your husband having both arms and only below the elbow is not something I can relate too. Not unless he is sleeping with his arm under a pillow like I do and maybe switching sides in the middle of night. About 2 weeks after surgery. I would wake up with my arm totally numb. And I didn't have that problem before.

Hope he gets well on his own. And nothing major is going on.

Maybe someone else on these forums can shed some light.

[lori67]

I didn't have this happen to me, but I have heard many people who had problems due to the odd position they put you in during surgery.  It sounds like a nerve thing to me too - it's quite possible the angle they had his head irritated a nerve and that's what's causing the problem.

I have a pillow, I think it's called a chiropractic pillow or something - it sortof has an indentation in the middle where the back of your head rests and a raised area under your neck to provide support.  You could also roll up a towel like a Tootsie Roll, secure it with rubber bands on the ends and use that to provide support to your neck.  That helps keep your vertebrae in proper alignment so they won't be pressing on a nerve root.  That might help.

Lori