So far, I have written on the bulletin board about the feeling I have received after ets reversal surgery. Through them, I'll write down my thought that my sympathetic nerve would be like this now, why compensatory sweating is occurring, and how much can I recover after ets reversal surgery.
【Attention】
The contents here are based on "the feeling I have received since I took reversal surgery", "a little what I have investigated", and "some of my assumption". Therefore, it is not known whether everything is correct or not, and there may be points that lack consideration. What you need to know in advance is that I am not a doctor but a patient, and that this is not a medical explanation.
So I hope you read this for the question and hope how much I will recover by taking ets reversal surgery.
And my thoughts may be changed in the future depending on facts and conditions that I do not know. This is my idea at the moment.
About the structure of the sympathetic nerve
Here is a diagram of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves on the Wikipedia page (Autonomic nervous system).
It is easy to understand that the vertical line at the left side is the spine, but the others are hard to understand. so let me give you a little supplement.
- The red line drawn in the original diagram is the sympathetic nerve. (The blue line is the parasympathetic nerve)
- The sympathetic nerve begins in each spine (thoracic and lumbar) and goes through the lateral line to the sympathetic trunk. The sympathetic trunk is vertically connected, and each intersection is called a ganglion. The ganglion that match T1 of the thoracic spine are T1 ganglion, and in the downward direction, T2 ganglion, T3 ganglion, ….
- The sympathetic nerve runs with the artery, and works when it dissipates energy.
- Sympathetic neurotransmitters are different before and after the sympathetic ganglion (The nerve before the sympathetic ganglion is acetylcholine, while the nerve after the sympathetic ganglion is catecholamine.). But the transmitters that control the sweat glands is the only exception, and acetylcholine acts before and after the sympathetic ganglion.
About my resection area and reversal area
I didn't know the area that was resected when I took ETS surgery, but I heard from the doctor who performed ETS reversal that the area is T3 and T4 on the right side, and T2 and T3 on the left.
I'll show it using the diagram above.
I think that the problem here is that the sympathetic trunk is divided up and down, and there are fewer nerves going up.
Therefore, because the parts cut by ETS surgery block the up and down flow, the substances that transmit through nerve (maybe it's acetylcholine?) have almost stopped flowing upwards. As a result, they accumulate in the abdomen, back, thighs, etc, so the more substances that promote sweating, the more these substances move toward the lower body and sweat as compensatory sweating...
Considering that large amount of compensatory sweating, not only the amount of neuromessenger that acts directly on the sweat glands in the upper body, but also the neurotransmitter on the pathway for propagation originally to every corner of the upper body, I think that they all reach the sweat glands in the lower half of the body and act directly to produce compensatory sweating.
The reason why I could say that it was caused by the stagnation of the flow to the upper part of the sympathetic trunk was because my doctor Timo Telaranta said to me about the surgical procedure that "I connected T2 and T5 to bypass on the right, and T1 and T4 to bypass on the left".
I think it's probably like this.
And even if the chest nerves was reconnected by this reversal surgery, as the sympathetic nerves on the upper side of the chest once became like a thin stream, so I think that there are many parts that have withered at the branches. Therefore, I feel that it takes time to restore the original flow even if the resected parts are reconnected.
I feel that the left side is already completely reconnected. I think that because there was only T1 nerve flowing up on left side, the force pushing upward might have flowed so strongly after reversal surgery. I think that's why I was connected first. (It took about a year and a half for my left nerve to be reconnected.)
I think that the reason why the right side is still moving more slowly not being connected even after 10 years is because the pushing force is weakened because the left side has finished moving and it is in an equilibrium state. But I still feel the moving flow of the sympathetic nerve, which runs with the arteries, so I believe it will recover more.
How much can I recover?
Even if all the movements are over, I still think that a little compensatory sweat will remain.
The first is whether the bypass which made at the reversal has enough thickness to restore the original flow, and the second is that the nerve from the resected sympathetic ganglion to the whole body may not be reconnected by reversal surgery so may be lost.
My Finnish doctor said, "When we do reversal surgery, we acturally look at the nerves after ETS in the chest and do the best we can on a case-by-case basis." So I believe that this bypass, which connects T2 and T5, was the most recoverable technique in my situation.
And I'm already satisfied with taking reversal surgery because I feel the recovery of considerable decrease of compensatory sweating.
Though I don't know how long it will take to connect the rest of the nerves that are still recovering, if the nerves are completely connected, I think that sweat that comes out when moving, numbness in the hands, headaches, and dizziness, etc.. will be alleviated or desappeared.
So, this time I wrote about what I think.
Back to English articles
