Neurapraxia

So what causes it?

Neuropraxia is typically caused by localized mild ischemia when a nerve is compressed against a firm surface during surgical positioning.

It's basically the clinical equivalent of falling asleep on your arm on an airplane.

You wake up, the arm feels dead and tingly because you compress the nerve.

And this is, nerves are often classified in three different categories of damage.

The first being neuropraxia, which is what we're talking about here, just minor irritation to the overall outer sheath of the nerve.

And then comes more serious complications where the nerve axon is really being damaged significantly, and that's called axonomesis.

And then the third type is neurotmesis, where there's a complete severance or complete damage to the nerve.

So you have the inner glass fiber that transmits the light, that’s our axon, and then you have the outer rubber casing protecting it, which is the myelin sheath.

Yeah, that fiber optic analogy perfectly maps to our first and, you know, mildest category, which is neuropraxia.

So what happens to the cable in neuropraxia?

Essentially, someone has just stepped on your cable.

There is a kink in it.

So even after severe blunt trauma.

Yeah.

If the injury is purely neuropraxia, the patient recovers fully in about six to eight weeks once that local inflammation and compression resolve.