Nerve Repair Surgery

Serving Patients in Cleveland and Lyndhurst, OH

The nerves are important structures that are found in the hand and provide feeling and power to the muscles in the hand. Nerves may be injured when deep lacerations occur. Injury to nerves cause numbness and/or weakness in the hand.

It is not possible to actually repair a nerve so that it functions immediately. What can be done is that the nerve endings can be trimmed, and using a microscope the edges can be carefully approximated and held together so that the proximal end of the nerve will grow into the distal end of the nerve and regenerate, and go back to the skin or muscle that was previously supplied by that nerve.

This procedure requires very meticulous technique and the use of an operating microscope or magnification so that very tiny sutures can be placed to accurately re-approximate the two ends of the cut nerve.

This is also a procedure that should be done as soon as possible after the injury (within about a week), because the nerve endings will retract and make the repair difficult or impossible later.

Sometimes if there is a gap in the nerve because of extensive damage or retraction, a nerve graft needs to be placed or a special synthetic nerve tube is used to bridge the gap and allow the nerve to grow back. Alternatively a nerve graft is used.