Soft tissue damage
 

In reference to my previous post....http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=152039

If there is/was soft tissue damage would it not have healed by now (8 months later)? I'm not experiencing any pain but something just feels different. What kind of damage could there be?

Sorry, did not read your previous post, but how does it feel? Numb? Pain? Or just discomfort? If you've sustained serious damage (and it sounds like you have), then you also may have sustained injury to the innervating nerves as well. In that case, it may get a little better, but will never be the same.

I've never considered any of the pain or discomfort I experienced serious. More annoying than anything, except a few days of stiffness a few months after the accident. The possible nerve damage you refer to, would an MRI see this?

hmmm - unlikely. I'm not talking about damage to major nerves, but to the nerve endings themselves. If you had very serious nerve damage, I would except that you would be in worse shape medically. MRI would detect any swelling or herniation, but it doesn't sounds like you have this. Cutaneous nerve damage can occur with sharp and severe blunt force injuries. What does your MD think of this?

I didn't read your earlier post, but I bet soft tissue damage could be permanent if you messed things up badly enough.

I crashed on a luge at Mount VanHovenberg going about 60 and slammed my leg into a steel awning support, the impact disintegrated some of my calf muscle. It persisted for a year and a half until the divot filled in, kind of. The scar lasted for half a decade or more, seems like.

I agree. I had brain surgery to remove a whomping huge tumor, and I still have no sensation on the upper right side of my face. That was 4 yrs ago. But that it what happens. Nerves don't regenerate. They are the only cells in the human body that don't divide after they're done maturing. If it's just cutaneous, you can become accustomed to it and learn to compensate. If it's large nerves, however, and they leave you with paralysis/spasms/or worse, well, that's something to talk to your neurologist about. (not me, I'm just a pathologist - but you can still ask me your questions and I will try to answer intelligently.)

Can you be a bit more specific?

John Wilke
Milwaukee

I was in a car crash once and had a lump on my arm for almost a year. I don't know exactly what it was but I thought it was blood that leaked into the mussel. It did go away after about a year. I did not ask a doc about it but I should have.

Joe