In my experience, numbness due to cubital tunnel syndrome post-surgery takes a long time to resolve. It may take 1 to 2 years to resolve completely, and unfortunately for some, it may never be 100%.
Patients who are treated earlier seem to achieve better results as compared to patients who receive treatment later as nerve compression ailments are time-sensitive - the longer the nerve is compressed, the more the damage and the more likely the damage is permanent and irreversible.
A good analogy to a nerve is a blood vessel supplying oxygenated blood to a muscle. Once the blood vessel is compressed and obliterated, oxygenated blood may no longer reach the muscle, and the muscle will start necrosing and die. Once the muscle becomes necrotic and dies, it fibroses and becomes hard, dead tissue.
This process is irreversible. In the case of a nerve, the nerve transmits impulses to and from the end-organ. The end-organ may be:
- sensory,
- motor or
- proprioceptive.
When the nerve is chronically compressed, transmission of signal is obliterated. This causes the end-organ to become dysfunctional. The longer this dysfunction is allowed to continue, the more irreversible the dysfunction becomes. Therefore, sensation to the skin supplied by the nerve may not recover fully and motor function of the muscle supplied by the nerve may not be fully active despite treatment. This is what chronic neuropathy may result in. Suffice to say, for treatment of nerve conditions, the earlier, the better.
