salijckt

While doing homework back in September, I stood up and experienced sudden pain in my left elbow. Within an hour, my hand swelled and I started to experience tingling. In spite of various diagnosis by doctors and attempts at cures, I am still experiencing pain in my elbow, as well as tingling and weakness and some swelling. Finally a hand orthopedic surgeon diagnosed me with Cubital Tunnel Syndrome/Ulnar Nerve Damage. After lots of splints and naproxen/lodine, and none of them helped, he decided to do surgery.

December 31, I had a anterior subcutaneous ulnar nerve transposition under local anesthesia. The surgery went well, the doctor said the nerve didn't appear damaged, just compressed. I was awake and amused at the fact the surgeon and nurses were discussing poker and smurfs during my surgery.

The recovery, on the other hand, is horrible - everything is worse now. Complete numbness in my ring/pinkie fingers and ulnar side of my hand, constant tingling, severe shooting pain if my arm is moved, arm strange sensations in my arm (everything from stabbing to a crawling sensation). My ulnar side of my wrist feels like it is constantly being pressed in a vice. I have lost even more strength, in fact I cannot move my ring or pinkie fingers more than a twitch, the muscles on the bottom of my fingers are pulling them down and feel really tight.

I was prescribed Tylenol with Codeine,1- 2 tablets every 4-6 hours or Vicodin 1-2 tablets every 6 hours. The Vicodin is stronger, but wears off after 3 1/2-4 hours. The Tylenol isn't as strong, but I can take it more often, I can't sleep, I can't concentrate all because of the pain - it is worse than anything I've ever had before (prior to now, I've never taken more than one regular Tylenol at a time). I'm trying to attend university courses, but can hardly pay attention in class. I have great professor who lets me bring a pillow to class to rest, my arm on, but by the end of class, I'm half-dead then I have to do homework for the next day!

Anyone else experience anything like this after surgery? What happened? What did you do? Is this normal healing or do you think something else is wrong?