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Nerves and Nerve injury
At any point in your life, have you ever felt a sensation of pain or numbness in one of your feet and wondered what could be cause? One of the possible reasons this could happen might be a pinched nerve.
A pinched nerve occurs when high pressure is placed on a nerve by the tissue surrounding it, thereby leading to symptoms like pain, numbness, or tingling feeling. Symptoms of nerve injury in the feet may be one of the followings aching, sharp, or burning pain, feelings of numbness in the foot affected, muscle weakness in your foot
You may also feel some symptoms in the bottom of your foot, your heel, or the ball of your foot. Symptoms may be located to only one area or radiate generally to other parts of your foot, like the toes or arches.
The nerves transfer sensory feelings which are touch, pressure or temperature and motor that is movement of muscles and impulses to and from your brain. A damage to one’s feet nerves may lead to reduction or a complete loss of sensation, weakness and skin dryness
When one of human nerves is cut or damaged, it will try it’s best to repair itself on its own The nerve fibres popularly known as axons diminish back and relax for a period of time, which might be about a month, therefore it begin to grow again. Axons regenerate approximately about 1.1mm per day. The extent to which our nerve will recover is variable, and it will always be incomplete. Recovery is fast if the cut nerve ends are conjoined together and repaired through surgery. If the nerves ends are not brought conjoined, the nerve fibres will still try to grow and find the other end of the nerve. However, frequently this yield to a lump of nerve ends known as a neuroma which is tender to knocks or pressure and in rare cases, it can be uncomfortable.
How Long Will My Nerve Take To Regenerate?
A nerve regenerating time depends on how serious your nerve was damaged and the level of injury that you got, especially If your nerve is bruised or traumatized but is not cut, it may recover in a period of 6-12 weeks. A nerve that is cut will grow at 1.1mm per day, after about a period of 3_4week rest following the injury sustained, some people will begin to notice continued improvement over many months.
Sensory nerves take time to heal up than motor nerves and can recover over a long period of time like months or years after sustaining injury.
Motor nerves heal up within a stipulated period or time. The reason for this is a structure known as the motor endplate where the nerve joins into the muscle. If the motor endplate does not receive any nerve impulse for more than 18-24 months, it dies away and there is no longer any way that the muscle can be activated by the nerve. The muscles then dry up or shrink away. However, surgical repair of motor nerves needs to happen within 12-18 months of sustaining injury.
Before one can feel sensation back in the injured feet nerve, your limb is at risk of damage as it has no sensation protecting it. Therefore, one needs to be careful of their feet, especially around hot or sharp objects. In addition, before the motor nerves recover, one’s feet or limb may not be able to move normally again or might form an abnormal postures. Hand and feet therapy or physiotherapy will allow movement to be maintained while the nerve cells regenerate.
How to Know When Your Nerve Is Recovering
As your nerve and its sensations recovers, the area the nerve supplies may feel different, it might be irksome and tingly. This tingly feeling may be accompanied by an electric shock sensational feeling at the level of the growing nerve fibres, the source of this sensation should move and change position as the nerve heals and grows. With time, these feelings reduce and the area start showing signs of more normal feelings.
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Does Nerve Recover Completely After Surgery?
Unfortunately, nerves do not recover completely after it was cut. The level of your nerve’s recovery in any part of your body depends on a number of few components such as:
- Your age: In conjunction with many other things in human life, your body becomes less structured at healing on it’s own as it ages.
- Method of injury: A damaged nerve sustained from a cut has greater chances of healing than nerve injury gotten from a crush.
- The time the injury was sustained: The faster your nerve heals, the better it will recover.
The process of repair: A nerve in the feet repairing directly on its own is the best.
Sustained injuries and whether there is tension across the repair. Sometimes the recovering nerve may be trapped within scar tissue. Recovery is rate become slow down if this happens.
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Available Options For Nerve Repair And Nerve Surgery
Direct nerve repair:
Surgeons use a microscope or magnifying glasses to repair a cut nerve with sutures This type of nerve repair surgery has the best recovery rates. Whether or not the surgeon can perform direct nerve repair on your injured limb now depends on the damage your nerve has suffered while sustaining the injury.
Nerve grafting:
However, sometimes an injured nerve cannot be repaired directly where your nerve ends, for instance, if there is a piece of nerve missing. A length of nerve will be taken from somewhere else in your body and be replaced as a graft in the affected area, similar to skin grafting. This can be performed using a microscope, too. Scars are gotten from the surgery and often a numb patch in the area where the nerve graft was taken.
Grafting donor nerves include sensory nerves of the skin of the forearm, feet and leg. Having a scar on the side of your arm or foot is usually less bothering than having a scar an on your hand.
Conclusion
A nerve carries sensation in a human body it might be a tingly feeling, when a feet nerve is damaged, it can heal on its own, through surgery or grafting.