After testing and thorough evaluation, your doctor may recommend that you have a procedure that is often termed "Nerve Decompression Surgery". The reasons for performing this surgery are many: It is very successful in eliminating pain, restoring sensation, improving balance and improving strength to the muscles involved and may have other applications more specific to YOU which the doctor will discuss with you.

These surgical procedures represent a remarkable breakthrough in the treatment of the types of conditions described above, when other treatments have failed to resolve the symptoms of neuropathy.

The approach to a complete nerve decompression surgery involves three incisions: One, on the side of the knee, just below it; The second on the top of the foot; The third on the inside of the ankle. In these three regions, the major nerves which supply sensation to the foot and leg course through tight anatomical tunnels and are often subject to abnormal pressure and pinching.

The purpose of the surgery is to remove this abnormal pressure from these nerves and to allow them to glide without any abnormal pressure placed upon them. Often this occurs from the thickness and tightness of the tunnels themselves, swelling occurring within the tunnel and outside of the tunnel, and from swelling within the nerve itself, between the fibers of the nerve and the envelope of tissue which surrounds the nerve.

Surgically, and using binocular loupe magnification, (similar to performing the procedure through a microscope), your doctor will locate the nerves and the regions of pinching, and remove all of the abnormal pressure points. The nerves, themselves, are not cut or removed, but some surrounding tissue that is causing the problem, sometimes is.

Depending on the reason that the surgery was needed, postoperative recovery is variable. In some cases of severe nerve damage, it may take several months, or even as long as a year, for nerves to regrow and reestablish sensation. For many patients results are even more dramatic, with pain relief and sensation restored almost immediately and even noticed in the recovery room!

Obviously, every patient and every group of symptoms is unique and reasonable expectations for results of these procedures must be discussed with your surgeon and completely understood before embarking upon any operation.