Tendon Transfer Sucesss After Severed Nerve

After my surgery, my doctor mentioned tendon transfer surgery as an option to get use of my hand back. He explained that in this surgery, redundant tendons are cut and rerouted to provide the function lost from a severed nerve. In my case, I would need one tendon moved for extension of my thumb and one moved for extension of my fingers.

This sounds pretty crazy and since I was so focused on my nerve and the idea of regrowing it, I didn't think that much about the surgery.

Then, during my first post operative appointment my doctor again briefly mentioned how successful tendon transfer typically is, so I finally did a little online research.

Wow! From the videos I saw, including the ones above, it seems like it's possible to get great functionality back.

That said, I will need to wait about a year to have the surgery so we can see if my nerve comes back well enough. Since the likelihood of that is very small, I will probably have this surgery in about a year. Then I'll have to recover and go through physical therapy to train my hand to function with the new arrangement of my tendons.

My hand won't ever be quite as strong as it once was, but in a year and some months, I will probably have use of my right hand again. This is great news!