The right arm thumbs up is significant for Marion, her words follow "I cannot recommend Stephen Grinnell and the InterX pain Clinic highly enough. Last year I fell and dislocated my right shoulder, resulting in severe damage to my radial nerve. This caused a complete loss of movement and sensation from my shoulder to my fingertips.
As soon as I started having InterX treatment there was a noticeable improvement. With Stephen’s positive encouragement and individually tailored exercise programme, combined with regular treatments, I have now regained full use of my arm, hand and fingers".
Marion came to me with this horrific injury where she had fallen while walking and put her arm out to stop it and dislocated her right shoulder. Marion was on holiday at the time and was taken to hospital where they relocated her shoulder and gave her physiotherapy for a week as an in patient. All of the movement was limited and passive as Marion could not move her arm and it had to be supported in a sling. Marion was discharged and referred to the QE Hospital in Birmingham for assessment. Initially they were focused on the trauma repair and that movement would return when the shoulder healed. This progressed for a couple of months and no movement progress but the pain and inflammation has subsided and Marion could move her arm using her other arm but limited independent movement.
I spent a couple of hours seeing Marion for an initial consultation and assessed nerves, movement and goals, I was realistic at that point and said I felt I could help but would need to evaluate progress as not sure of outcome due to the damage and lack of movement and a very cold arm.
Worked on shoulder and neck which was the focus of the hospital physio team, then progressed to the hands and fingers the video below is in the early stages of treatment.
As you can see from the video Marion has limited arm movement and can only move her wrist and fingers to some degree.
I have to move her arm in different positions and she is unable to move wrist or hand when re positioned. So in a poor position for recovery
Marion required 3 packages of treatment which is much more than normal but this was a severe complex case. The first package was focused on the hand and fingers as they are at the end of the line for nerves so get these working and meet in the middle. Marion had lots of muscle wastage in right arm so we focused on grip first and squeezing. This helped the finger sensation and movement. Marion did a lot of walking holding a empty shopping bag that gradually got heavier as grip improved and shoulder. Initially Marion could only grip 50g so we started there. I work on percentage for increase initially so when Marion could do 100g its a 100% improvement and so on. Marion progressed to 3kg in the end which is a crazy improvement magnitude.
The second package was shoulder and arm movement and progress which started slow but improved over the weeks. The most significant changes were happening at a nerve level due to the interX treatment and Marion's sensation and circulation was improving so helping the tissue repair its self. I used a whole range of different movements as homework and was reviewing to have the most impact as significant progress had been made.
With a wrist support Marion's shoulder movement and strength meant that she was able to drive a car which helped with life in general.
Marion was using things like a partially filled kettle which she gradually increased in water volume as she got better.
Marion wanted to do lots of fine movement activities with her hands, firstly they had to be broken down and modified for what she could do then gradually put back together.
Writing Christmas cards for 2022 was a target and we used a marker pen and large paper first then progressed to a pen
My personal favourite was WAVE!
Marion is 95% recovered has not required surgery on her shoulder or thumb and the surgeon has said it was a remarkable recovery. Marion put lots of time into her homework activity and this encouraged me to find new solutions to new goals while progressing with InterX treatment.
Marion's appraisal is below
"Stephen was very honest with me at my initial assessment .He could promise a significant improvement, but not necessarily a complete recovery. However, his treatment plan has achieved what I thought might be impossible – a full recovery . (this also means I don’t need an operation anymore.)
Thank you so much
Marion Hiles
If you require treatment please contact me on 01789 228123 or DM using the Icon to the right
