Peripheral paralysis occurs as a result of injury or dysfunction of the nerve fibers leading to the muscles. It can be temporary, partial, or complete, which significantly influences the recovery time.
The role of motor nerves is to carry movement "instructions" from the brain to the muscles. If the nerve pathway is damaged, muscle weakness or even complete loss of movement occurs.
The symptoms depend on which nerve is injured. Facial nerve paralysis (Bell’s palsy), for example, is limited to one side of the face, whereas an injury to the cervical spinal cord can result in loss of movement in all four limbs.
Treatment
When a muscle becomes paralyzed, you typically receive 5–10 days of treatment in outpatient clinics. However, this is not sufficient. Treatment for peripheral paralysis usually needs to continue for months, sometimes even years. Nerve fiber regeneration is very slow, generally growing 0.1–0.2 mm per day, and even in the most optimal case only up to 1 mm. The facial nerve can be 15–20 cm long—meaning the shortest possible time is 150–200 days. In peroneal paralysis, the nerve fiber may be 60–70 cm long, which can mean 2–3 years of regeneration time.
It is necessary to perform the electrical treatment daily because the muscle that has lost its nerve (the so-called denervated muscle) atrophies quickly without motor impulses. If left untreated for a long time, the muscle becomes permanently damaged, connective tissue overgrows, and your condition cannot be improved from there. With treatment, you can maintain the functionality of the muscles until the regenerating nerve fiber reaches them again. If the muscle has been destroyed, the symptoms of paralysis will no longer improve despite nerve regeneration. However, if viable muscle fibers are still present, muscle function will return.
Muscles with nerve fiber injuries cannot be stimulated with just any device or in any manner! A device bought from a supermarket is certainly not suitable for treating your stiff neck.
The sooner you start electrotherapy after paralysis, the greater the chance of improvement and the faster the process.
In cases of paralysis, 2–4 treatments per day are required at home. You can find the stimulators for this in this group.
