Anyone know what nerve regeneration feels like? I have a herniated disk that has caused nerve damage in left saddle region. I have started swimming and doing physio and am having some twinges, in the places where I have experienced sciatic pain.I am trying to work out if I am making things worse or better??
Thanks in advance
I have been having issues with my SI Joint, but as yet not nerve regeneration there, but I did have nerve regeneration in my foot when a surgeon nicked the calcaneum branch of the nerve that runs along the inside of the ankle and under neath. It effected hot and cold feedback, as well as touch.
Nerve regeneration is really fascinating (or maybe that's just me as my background is neuroscience!). If the damage wasn't too bad, that is the nerve itself wasn't actually cut through but only the surface was damaged (the myelin sheath) then what happens is the cells that are damaged have to be removed by various little worker phages, I think of them as Pacman type things. Then after a few weeks if the path is now clear, the myelin sheath starts to grow from where the damage is to the end of the nerve.
The myelin is like the covers on electric cables, it helps keep the signals going through the nerve safe and allows them to move quickly and efficiently. if there are breaks in it then the signal slows down.
But the neat thing with regeneration is that the brain is getting signals back all the time. Sometimes those signals will be confusing or seem new.
When my nerve was regenerating, I could tell the day where the nerve and its sheath was back intact, I suddenly had the feeling in the skin come back. But the weirdest thing was when I put the foot into warm water, either a bath or the hydrotherapy pool. Suddenly the brain was receiving some messages that it hadn't had for a few months, and it didn't know what to make of it. So it sort of got it wrong, it told me that the bottom of the pool under my left foot only was covered in cut glass! Weird! It had got the heat feedback confused with the touch feedback.
But I told my brain nope, it was the same tiles as what was under the right foot, and after a month or so the brain recalibrated and the reaction from each foot was the same and normal.
So yes, you may well have a nerve that is repairing and a brain that is having to recalibrate. It can take a year for damaged nerves and the brain to get back to 'normal'. Are you doing damage? Probably not, as long as you are not over doing it. It should be slowly getting better, not suddenly getting worse. If is is getting worse then you need to talk to your physio again.
Good luck! I hope the healing goes well.
Very interested in your explanation of the nerves. I have cervical myelopathy and lumbar stenosis and in consequence a numb left hand and foot. What can be done to help nerve regeneration?
Not really, the peripheral nervous system just has to get on with it. It is a slow process, with small nerves growing at 2mm a day, and large ones about 5mm a day. So the best thing is to just make sure you are as healthy as possible. Things like smoking may slow things down, but if you don't smoke, and you have a healthy diet, you are probably doing all that you can. It might just take time.
Thanks for your reply. Patience was never my strong point but I am trying to stay active, doing some physio and having acupuncture from time to time.
Yes, it is hard to wait. As long as you don't push things too much, it sounds like you are doing the right things. You don't have to do 'exercise' but you do need to stay active, but it is all relative. I think sometimes physios think we just sit around all day doing nothing, but some of us do housework, gardening, brining in the wood, lighting the fire, making dinner... it all counts as activity!
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