None that has been reported.

I have nerve damage from traditional surgery. The Doc worked on a cut open hand with the nerves in full view and still butchered me.

Go to it; it's NA all the way.

I still have some nerve damage from traditional hand surgery. I received no more from the NA procedure. Dr. Eaton hit a nerve, feels like you stuck your hand in an open electrical socket, but no damage. I would go with the NA, however I suspect NA is not for every situation.

I looked into this before going to Eaton, as my surgeon here in Wisconsin also mentioned nerve damage. Actual data indicates that nerve damage is several times more likely with surgery compared to NA.

Tolucca,

Both NA and OS ARE associated with nerve damage, so your slam on the CHS is out of line. The question is not is there is nerve damage, but what is the occurance rate of nerve damage from NA or OS? Your posting contributed nothing to answer either question, but instead suggest in no uncertain terms that nerve damage is not a problem with NA.

I'm not looking for a fight, but that is how your posting reads and it is just not right.

As a rule of thumb for posting, everyone should keep in mind how a newbie with no knowledge would intrepret it.

Nerve damage from NA is well documented and it is! I had OS and while the nerves seem OK, I think there has some minor damage.

Where is your proof - that is documented studies of no nerve damage from NA? Since that proof does not exist, how can you justify your posting? You slammed your surgeon for being "the man", but you showed the same behavior.

Steve,

Below is a message I posted some months ago that includes a link to an interesting paper. The paper is supportive of NA, but raised very serious questions about the quality of some studies, particularly the French studies. As anyone who knows statistics, it very easy to publish results you want to hear. As for Eaton's studies, it really may be soon (even 06) to claim any last-lasting results as many of the patients in question will have operated on within the last few years.

Also, the true test in all studies is not who authors, but who publishes it and who endores it. If Eaton's study has the seal of approval from the Mayo Clinic, NIH or another respected entity and is published in a referred journal, that would be great. If it is not, then it would raise questions.

At best, data presented now can only be considered interim results. As for the French studies, I have a number of references online (some on the NIH site) that question them.

We may be years away from knowing the long-term advantages or diadvantages of NA over OS. Of course the wrinkle in all this is that either treatment depends upon the severity of any one patients condition. So, in the end, who knows. You'll have to seek opinions and trust the doctor you select.



I posted this message to another topic, but wanted to create a new topic and hope others can share other sources of information.

The following link is to a 2003 study published in the UK that addresses dups and raises questions with NA studies. Its worth reading. In summary, some of the conclusions are:

""http://www.nice.org.uk/pdf/ip/177overview.pdf

National Institute for Clinical Excellence, UK, “Validity and generalisability of the studies (Of Needle Aponeurotomy)

• In general the studies are of poor methodological quality. Little information was reported on factors such as patient characteristics, selection and measurement of outcomes.

• In a number of papers the severity of the condition in study participants was unclear, and one paper excluded from the analysis those patients who initially did not have a successful outcome.

• While recurrence rates after the procedure ranged from 11% to 65%. These rates should be interpreted with some caution, given the different populations and time points in which they were measured.

• Considerable loss to follow up was reported in the Badois and co-workers (1993) paper. It is unclear whether there was similar loss to follow up in the results of the 1995 study. It is also unclear what impact this loss to follow up might have on re-operation and/or recurrence rates.

• The papers by Foucher and co-workers (2001a, b), although separate reviews, do include a subset of the same patients. This is also the case for the results reported by Badois and co-workers (1993).

• A considerable amount of literature on this procedure is published in French. This literature does not include comparative information; instead most of the studies seem to be case-series papers.

In general, papers reported on a limited number of outcomes and it was often unclear at what time point outcomes were measured. The number of hands was frequently used as a denominator to measure outcomes.""


If sample groups are excluding poor outcomes, that would be very troubling. Be interested in other studies (pro or con) and hope others can share those.