[azalemeth]

I've had exactly these experiences following a spinal injury -- fracture of a vertebra but with minimal cord damage and quite a lot of disruption to the dorsal root ganglia.

You can't put into words how weird it is to fall over because your brain thinks your foot is somewhere it isn't. Or how suddenly you become incredibly aware of how the front of your calf feels. Or how overjoyed you are to be able to move your toes again for the first time in a year. It's not like what you see on the movies.

Wallerian degeneration -- yes, degeneration -- is part of the healing process of some grades of nerve injury. Things literally get worse before they get better, as the fragment left of the crushed axon degenerates to its root and then regrows. It's incredibly slow -- around 1mm/day at most -- and a matter of probabilities. What's also worth mentioning is that there are plenty of internal nerves too, where restoring function after a trauma would be life-changing -- like the Vegas nerve, which buggers up lots of things if damaged slightly, or, in my case, some of the nerves in the fundus and neck of the bladder, meaning that my toileting is really very different than it was before.

I'm glad you're doing better, and hope you continue to do so. I've no idea if the device the article is talking about will ever help, but nerve injuries cause so much disability worldwide I'm glad they're continuing to be worked on.

[kwhitefoot]

This and the parent comment really should be at the top of this page. They are the best descriptions of how this sort of thing works in practice I have encountered. And while they tell how difficult and slow it all is I feel that they could give hope to others that some sort of recovery can be possible even without new advances in treatment.

[ethbr1]

Amazed congratulations to you and parent. I can't imagine going through that, but then I imagine you wouldn't have chosen to either. Hope things continue improving.

Your description also made me reflect on infants, and whether we effectively "feel more" in that stage, as our nervous systems are self-calibrating and adjusting gain.

[avg_dev]

Thanks to both of you for the amazing descriptions. And continued good luck.