I’ll try that stuff out thanks! Do you know if the hoku comes in a 35mm? I’m trying to get all of the LED stuff figured out for the stick I’m having built. PAS is out of the Pele rings, which I believe are the only things that work well for the gamerfinger buttons. Apparently Jasen needs to use a different shaft contingent upon which balltop I’m going to want to use; 6mm vs 10mm. I still haven’t gotten much feedback in terms of how the clear bubbletop looks in comparison to the hoku. The only videos / pictures I’ve even seen with an illuminated hoku are in dark settings. Also, I wouldn’t want to go any smaller on the balltop given how I hold the stick.
I sent a message to PAS asking about switching some stuff out from my order since it hadn’t shipped but it shipped before that could happen. If the shipping situation has been resolved I’ll order the items you’ve suggested and maybe sell / return the stuff I won’t be needing. I still need to order a few more things now that I’ve been able to really determine where my tastes lie. I don’t actually know if I need a weaker spring in the jlf, but the cherry switches may just do the trick. I’ll add one at a time and see how it feels. I really appreciate the input! I’m trying to get everything resolved, in terms of what I like, before Jasen gets to the point that he’s installing the LED’s. I need to be able to tell him what stick / shaft to use ect so that I wont have to mess with reinstalling any of the LED stuff.
I have enough of an issue just changing these sticks out given my hands shaking. Its just that really fine motor dexterity that, depending on what I’ve done that day, I have issues with. I can start out fine but I have to plan my movements carefully so that I don’t overdo it. I can play street fighter just fine, albeit with pain, but its good to work the muscles in my hands - which have atrophied immensely. Granted, I was a pretty kick ass finger styling guitarist for over a decade before I had my first surgery in 2005. Doctor made mistakes and 3 surgeries later I’m still messed up. It is a very long story that I can tell a little later. The hand that’s really problematic is my right hand, but chronic pain causes bodily stress, which induces tightness, which has seemed to cause recompression of both the ulnar nerves. I have severe pain in the back of both my elbows if I try to read in bed. Bending my arms too harshly doesn’t seem to work out in my favor. I’m now getting back into physical therapy, which helps but is slow. I am seeing an osteopathic therapist specializing in mayofascial release. I discovered MFR when I went to a month long intensive in Sedona during the summer of 2010. After 4-8 hours a day of intense MFR I gained the ability to fully flex all five digits in my right hand. It was pretty great. At the time my left wasn’t nearly as bad as it is today. The problem is what pain does to your entire body. As a doctor, I’m sure you know, but for the rest of you - pain causes everything to suck. I have severe tightness everywhere. I try to do massage when I can and, unless I go for 2 hours + my whole body can’t be fully addressed. What’s worse is that a week later everything has tightened back up again. I was making good progress when I was in PT 3x a week + massage on the weekend. Unfortunately I’ll have to keep up with that for the rest of my life most likely. Recent nerve conduction studies show recompression in both of the ulnar nerves. I’m pretty sure after what’s happened to me surgery would make it worse, so my only real option is seeing if this MFR will fix it. When I was first diagnosed back in early 2005 my idiot doctor, who just happens to be the biggest named hand surgeon in New Orleans, sent me to PT. At the time I knew nothing about MFR and was sent to just a general physical therapist who told me to do exercises. After 2 weeks (which is nothing) he told me we had to operate. From what my physical therapist tells me its more common now for PTs to take a hands on approach; to manipulate the tissue. Apparently new PT’s are required to get a doctorate or something like that, so hopefully in the extra school they’re learning more than just walking away while you squeeze crap or finger climb a ladder. I wrote about what happened to me before going to Sedona in 2010. They needed to get an idea of what happened so that they could treat me and it was easier than telling people the same thing over and over. If I can find that paper I’ll send it to you, armi.
Sorry for the massive tangent lol
EDIT: I don’t think I made it clear that I had one surgery on my left elbow and 2 on my right. Submuscular transposition @ the left elbow December 2005, medial epecondialectomy @ right elbow May 2006, and a submuscular transposition @ right elbow June 2006. After Hurricane Katrina my then girlfriend and I got an apartment in Houston so that we wouldn’t miss any college. My parents and my doctor, who was supposed to be the best, were in New Orleans so I went back home for my surgeries. My folks’ house got flooded so they were living in an apartment.
During winter break I went back to stay with my parents and have my first surgery. My doctor recommended we start with the left arm because, at the time, it was much worse. Initially he wanted to do the less invasive medial epecondialectomy, but once he got me in the table he realized that it would be safer to go with the more invasive sub muscular transposition. He told me he didn’t want to do the medial epecondialectomy because of something with my bones being too shallow I think - I can’t remember what it was. It was a long recovery, but I recovered just fine from that surgery. After a few weeks I went back to Houston and started physical therapy to get my elbow straightened out, which hurt like hell but eventually worked out just fine.
6 months later I went back to New Orleans to have my right arm done. Well, that day sucked pretty bad. Instead of going with the safer option that he decided on 6 months prior, he performed the medial epecondialectomy. My parents were a little anxious when I came out not 20 minutes after I went in, and as I woke up from surgery I was in the worst pain I had ever been in. I didn’t have pain killers in me or something, I honestly have no clue but they eventually got something in me and it helped. Just like from the surgery before it, I had an OnQ lidocaine (I think thats what was in it) pump that was dripping directly onto the nerve to numb it. I went back to my parent’s apartment to recover but this time was very different. Unlike last time, I was needing more than just the tramadol to deal with the pain even. 6 months prior I only really took the vicodin the first day or two. This time I also had a horrible bruise that started from under my dressings and went up into my armpit. Well, I had some work stuff that I was doing in Houston so I needed to get back as soon as possible. I scheduled my flight for the same day I was supposed to get my dressing off and my pump removed. I had done it 6 months prior and it wasn’t a huge deal so I figured I would be fine, albeit in a sling - obviously. My parents left the day before for a vacation to Spain and the next day I went to the doctors office to get my dressing / staples / pump removed. They removed the dressing and exposed this giant, hideous bruise that went all around my entire arm. Also, the staples were poorly done and my scar came apart as they removed them. They removed my OnQ pump and sent me on my way, with the obviously rushed job (we found out months later that the doctor scheduled way too many surgeries that day, which wouldn’t have even allowed him to perform the longer submuscular transposition).
As the medicine from the, now gone, pump started to subside I started to feel extreme pain under the numbness. The pump made my hand numb and I was expecting to get some feeling back when it was removed just like what happened during my previous operation. That didn’t happen. By the time I got up in the air I started throwing up because the pain in my hand had gotten so awful beneath the pain. When I got back to Houston and my, then (bitch of a) girlfriend picked me up I could barely make it to the car the pain was so bad. This was June 1st 2006 and I was a week away from my 19th birthday. The second I got in the car I called the doctors office and tried to get in touch with someone. They made me leave a message and the nurse called me back and said it was normal (she thought I was exaggerating or something) and prescribed me a medrol steroid dose pack (I think that’s what its called - you take like 24 pills in 4 days). My mother, who is a doctor, and a bitch who could maybe get in touch with my doctor, (OBGYN) was on vacation in Spain so getting in touch with her was difficult and I didn’t want to bother them until after the dose pack had a chance to work. 4 days later, the only thing that changed was that the muscle in my hand was starting to die and I was in such severe pain I could barely stand, keep food down, or think coherently. I was downing painkillers like they were candy but they didn’t help. All I could feel was numbness and pain. My mother and father were trying to call the damn doctor from Spain but the only person who would ever return any calls was the nurse and that was days later. My girlfriend didn’t want to deal with it so she spent as much time away as possible and I was too drugged to do much of anything so it wasn’t until my parents got back from spain that they were able to take charge and get me back into town to see the doctor.
After 3 weeks of hell, I got back on a plane and went back to New Orleans. My jackass, slick backed haired doctor saw me a day later and acted like it was normal, like I was just being a pussy, and everything would be fine. The doctor had me go to his ‘buddy’ neurologist to get a nerve conduction study. My mother and I went and after I had the study the neurologist informed me that my nerve may have been severed based on the results. It wasn’t conducting. My hand surgeon said he wanted to reexplore and booked me for surgery a week later. I went in and he ended up burying the nerve under the muscle, which lo and behold is a submuscular transpo-fucking-isiton, the thing he should have done in the first place. That surgery took several hours and I was given a kings treatment afterwords. This time he took his time and wanted to make sure I was happy as a clam in order to avoid being sued. We asked why I was in so much pain and why the nerve conduction study indicated what it did. He gave us some line about unexpected complications caused the nerve to slip and get crushed or something to that effect. To this day I still don’t really understand it. The way another doctor explained it to me is that the nerve is supposed to be like a tube, but mine had been flattened somehow. After the submuscular transposition the death defying pain had gone away. I guess because the the pressure had been relieved on the nerve the awful pain had gone away. Keep in mind, even with 70% of the pain gone, I was still in pretty severe pain. Also, I was still numb. Actually, to this day I can’t feel the tip of my pinky and its only been in the last few years that I got reduced numbness in half of my ring finger and the rest of my pinky. I am also still in chronic pain. I did try to sue the doctor but it didn’t go anywhere. No one would dare testify against this guy who is the cream of the crop and has a very influential family. People are afraid of repercussions. The medical panel deemed that the medial epecondialectomy is a valid procedure to treat ulnar nerve entrapment, so they wouldn’t do anything either. The doctor’s friend, the neurologist, dummied my nerve conduction study results to not look nearly as bad as the numbers he showed me and my mother when we were in the office that day. He had also retired right after all of that happened.
At this point, there’s nothing that can be done except really good, hands on, physical therapy. I just won’t go back into surgery and risk scar tissue pissing off the nerves anymore than they already are. I’ve seen every specialist, taken every drug and tried every thing. I saw so many doctors that screwed me in so many ways on the opiates that I developed a severe tolerance to them. At my peak I was taking 650mg of percocet a day. From there I finally got stabilized on Methadone, which everyone thinks its just for junkies to come down off heroine but it actually treats pain too. I started at 180 methadone a day and am now down to 60 going down 10mg a month. After nearly a decade I’m finally close to being off these damn drugs that, due to my extreme tolerance and hyper algesia, don’t do shit for me anyway. All they’re doing is blocking my own bodies natural modalites from doing their job. The drugs / chronic pain have trashed my testesterone to the point that I’m at less than 10% of where I should be and am doing replacement therapy. That, unfortunately kills my fertility but thankfully I’ve banked my stuff before I started so that I’ll be able to have kids one day. I’m hoping that a lot of my issues will get better when I’m completely off the meds. If there was a way to just stop taking them now I would, but I have to slowly taper so that I can reteach my body to produce its own dopamine and endorphins. Lots of fun, right?
Oh yea, I forgot to mention that after my last surgery on my right arm I saw an unbiased doctor (not my idiot surgeon who didn’t want to be sued) and he told me that I’d likely never use my right hand again due to how much damage was done. Houston has some good physical therapy programs so I wanted to get back there while it was still summer and get started and see if there was any way I could at least try. My girlfriend picked me up from the airport, we get back to the apartment and she informs me she’s done. So now I’m in Houston where, because I’ve only been there a few months I don’t know a single person and I have to completely take care of myself while drugged up, in chronic pain, and without the use of my dominate hand. Even more fun, right?
Well, I start physical therapy and the only thing they can really do is help me get my elbow straight and try to help with the pain in my hand. They give me a TENS unit for pain and that helped some but I was told not to wear it all the time. I tell the therapist I’d be willing to do anything in order to get the use back in my right hand. I’ve been a gamer and a musician my entire life! I wanted to at least try. Any way, the threapist brings in this electronic stimulation unit and shows me how to use it. I put my wrist on a water soaked pad and shock myself in different spots all around my hand and wrist, about 12 or 14 spots. I think it was 10 reps in each spot 3x a day. Because of the numbness I couldn’t feel anything with the stock voltage so they special ordered one that plugged in to the wall to get some more juice. Well, I’m not going to lie, it hurt like hell. My skin would crack, and burn, and bleed sometimes. The therapist said that it was insane for me to put myself through that much pain, but honestly I didn’t care. After a little over a year of doing it every single day without fail, I started feeling results. I could move my little fingers a little, I had some more feeling. The neurologist seemed to think that I jump started my nerve a bit and doing it any more wouldn’t help so after a few more months I stopped. Then, well - the rest is history. I just thought that part was particularly interesting.
Also, if I can find some pictures of how my arm was stapleds I will post them (in links NSFW) for anyone who wants to see. Its really funny. First scar left arm looks fine, second scar right arm looks disgusting with bent / crooked staples and a gash that opened when the staples were removed (lol doctor in a rush), and the third scar was immaculate. You could really tell that the doctor was scared that he fucked up and took serious time with every step.
Sorry for the long post here, lol
EDIT 2: I found the thing I wrote back in 2010 before going to the MFR clinic in Sedona. I’ll Spoiler it as to not take up even more space for those who are interested. Its a lot more comprehensive. Also, it says I was going to go to law school but I decided that was an awful idea and just stuck with the MBA.
[details=Spoiler]My name is Andrew *Annonomous*. I am a twenty-two year old college student currently pursuing an MBA from Tulane University. After I graduate, I plan on going to law school. When I was seventeen years old I injured myself while lifting weights. The ulnar nerve in each of my arms became compressed as a result of this. Physical therapy, anti-inflammatory drugs and rest did not restore either of the compressed nerves. When I was eighteen years old I enrolled at the University of Houston due to being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. In December 2005 I returned to New Orleans to receive a sub-muscular transposition at the left elbow with the intention of decompressing my ulnar nerve. The surgeon’s initial plan was to perform a medial epicondylectomy (a less invasive and less time consuming procedure) but noted that the bone was too shallow to support it, and therefore performed the sub-muscular transposition. My parents, also displaced, were temporarily living in an apartment five minutes south east of their damaged home, and were providing post surgical care. In addition, the doctor who had initially diagnosed me was supposedly an excellent surgeon. A week after the operation the OnQ drip implanted at the surgical site was removed and a day later feeling returned to my hand. I returned to my Houston apartment, enrolled in my spring semester and began physical therapy. A few months later I had almost full flexion of the elbow and I had made a full recovery.
Prior to the initial surgery in December, my symptoms included pain at the back of the elbows, and tingling of my little fingers. These were minor inconveniences, though I was told that they would escalate dramatically if I had not had the operation(s). At the end of May, 2006 I returned to New Orleans for my second surgery. Instead of the sub muscular transposition, however, the surgeon preformed the medial epicondylectomy, which initially was deemed inappropriate for my physiology. The week after the operation, similarly to the operation six months prior, the OnQ pump was removed. The next day I boarded a plane to Houston as my parents left for a summer vacation in Spain. As the effects of the previously installed drip started to dissipate, upon takeoff I started to notice a throbbing sensation in my hand. I didn’t understand why I still felt numbness a day after the drip was removed, as well as why I was feeling pain under that numbness. That night in Houston, I was awoken with excruciating pain in my right hand. I took some of the Vicodin prescribed to me after my surgery, though no reprieve was in sight. I ended up taking more Vicodin during the next twenty-four hours than I had taken during both of my previous surgeries combined, though no pain was alleviated. The pain was immeasurable. Everything I ate, I vomited. Every step I took was followed by severe stabbing sensations in my hand. I was paralyzed. I finally mustered the strength to sort through my belongings and find the itinerary my father had given me prior to his departure. I called the hotel and left a message. This call was followed by a call to my doctor - another voicemail.
The next day both calls were returned. I explained to my parents that I was having post-surgical pain in an area fifteen inches away from my incision. The doctor’s nurse returned my call, assured me this was normal, and recommended a Medrol dose steroid pack. Over the course of the next few days I took the medicine along with an extraordinary amount of Vicodin (for a nineteen year old kid with no tolerance) and received no relief. My parents, while in Spain, continued to try and reach my doctor while I continued to lie in a pool of my own sick. After another week of back and forth, my parents finally penetrated through my doctor’s ego and he returned my call. He told me it should go away, and if I still experienced “discomfort” for another week or so, I should come in for a re-examination. Ten days later, I succumbed to the pain and returned to New Orleans. After an examination, my doctor recommended a nerve conduction study. The study was initiated later that day and dictated that the ulnar nerve had zero conductivity. He also concluded that 90% of the muscle in my hand had atrophied within 3 weeks since the operation. My doctor determined that the only appropriate measure was to re-explore and assess. Four weeks after my right elbow was cut open for the first time, it was cut into for a second and revealed that the nerve had “slipped” and was being crushed by the bone. The doctor freed the nerve, buried it under the muscle as he had done on my left seven months prior, and closed me up. In order to determine the success of the operation, an OnQ pump was not installed. I awoke a few hours later.
Nearly a year later, after countless electro “T-stem” treatments and intensive physical therapy, minor function returned to my hand. Nerve conduction studies were taken throughout the first year, which deemed the nerve conductivity “better”. Better, however, is a relative to term and relative to zero, “better” isn’t very good. My doctor informed me that the nerve would regenerate fully within twelve months. He said, “No permanent damage would be done” and that I would be “fine”. After nearly four years of severe chronic pain, battling opiate dependence and tolerance, trying every pain management methodology under the sun, depression, and the prospect of a life long battle with these issues – I can assuredly assess my situation, and it is not “fine”.
My hand hurts. It burns, it aches, and it feels like a knife is stabbing into it several times an hour. I still have numbness in my pinky finger, half of my ring finger, and down along the outer left exterior of my palm. In the four years since the operation, I have tried acupuncture, drugs, topical creams, physical therapy, desensitization, massage, mind body work, and pretty much anything else you can think of. When I first started having pain, I would spend hours researching my condition. I spent hours simply trying to figure out a way to cope - to live. With all of the drugs I was on, my cognitive ability was severely impaired. I had to work three times as hard in college because nothing sank in. The way I was accustomed to learning was by writing things down. I could no longer do so. Being drugged up all the time didn’t help either. I generally had to read over my material three times just to comprehend half of it. There were times that I had to take a taxi to get to class because I was so drugged up that I couldn’t drive myself. Most of the time, however, I couldn’t make it in. Thankfully my professors were understanding and allowed me to do most of my work from home.
Chronic pain has affected more than just my right hand. My entire body has been heavily taxed. As any person in chronic pain knows, everything is affected. I have nerve pain, and everything routes through my central nervous system. Several times a night, I wake up in pain. My joints are constantly stiff, and my body aches. I started losing my hair when I was 19. My hair loss is genetically inevitable, though doctors have felt that it has been dramatically accelerated by the incident. Since the surgery, my vision has started to degrade. I had perfect vision when I was 18. Now I wear glasses.
In some ways, time has been good to me. Over time, I got the majority of the use of my hand back, though I still have no fine dexterity. Two years after the surgery, my hand began to tremor violently. The tremors come in waves, though there seems to be a pain correlation. The more pain I am in, the worse the tremors are. I have also become tolerant to the drugs, which can be good and bad. Its good because my cognitive ability is no longer impaired. It’s bad because the drugs alleviate less and less pain.
Since January of 2010, I’ve been utilizing Myofascial Release Therapy for one hour twice a week. After I’ve had the session, I feel better for an hour, maybe two. Over time I feel that it may have had some lasting effects, though at this point they’re too minor to tell. I hope that MFR Therapy can serve as a means to provide a better of quality of life for me. I am open minded to it, and I have spoken with people whose lives have been changed by it. I understand that it will not “fix” my pain. If it can help improve the quality of my day, it may be worth it.
I’ve been suffering for a long time. I am a pessimist. Multiple specialists have told me that I will be in pain for the rest of my life, so I don’t expect to get “fixed”. The pain in my hand constantly sent negative signals to my brain, and over time my brain has “looped” that signal. From what I understand, even if my arm were to be cut off, I would still be in pain. Maybe there is something out there that could improve my quality of life, maybe there isn’t. I have gotten this far, and I can get even further. I have accomplished a lot, and I intend to accomplish more. I won’t let this ruin my life, but I pray like hell that it will go away.
[/details]
I seriously commend anyone who reads all of this, but I highly doubt anyone except for our doctor friend will.
