One of the worst things about city living is carrying heavy groceries. After finally (really like 5 minutes) setting down my bags I too, like so many of you, had that feeling in my left middle finger. 8 hours out and it hasn’t improved. Hoping I get lucky and recover in no longer than a week! I am a law student and I type A LOT.

Thanks for this blog!-Can’t believe it was written almost 7 years ago, who would have thought!

Any medical pros able to suggest anything to speed up the healing? Heat? Ice? Splint?

I don’t hear back from too many of the people who post here so I can’t really tell you how many have full recoveries. The few who do come back have mostly had full recovery. The only case that didn’t was the recent case of NeillyD who posted in October that she still had some numbess (She said 95% recovery).

And I worry about Dan from back in June who mentioned pain rather then numbness. I think he had a different injury, albeit finger related.

I wish I had know how many people would be drawn to this post for help. I would have set up a better system and maybe a built in database of people’s injuries and recovery time. But I didn’t. Still, I think this post does it’s job – which is to relieve people with GBS that it’s not as serious as it might seem.

I was carrying a stupidly ridiculous number of plastic grocery bags in from the car last night. It was a lot of weight, but because it was cold outside (Northern Canada in December), I wanted to be a hero and do it all in one trip. When I finally set them all down, the tip of my ring finger was completely numb, and persisted throughout all last evening.

The embarrassing thing is that I am a healthcare professional who not only uses my hands all day, but would NEVER recommend that any of my patients EVER carry that many bags of heavy groceries in one shot – more for fear of low back or shoulder injury than what we’re talking about here. Although my low back and shoulder are fine, I feel like a hypocrite!

Anyway, the so-called Grocery Bag Syndrome (GBS) seems to be a mild form of something called neurapraxia. The good news is that as long as the damage isn’t too severe (i.e. there is not a lot of scar tissue buildup), usually peripheral nerves do typically slowly regenerate. My finger is already 50% better this morning, so my case of GBS is obviously a milder one than some mentioned in the above posts.

It’s interesting to think that the switch from paper grocery bags years ago to plastic bags has allowed all of us to carry much more weight in one load, and while some might find that convenient, it obviously has some potential risk to it – both musculoskeletal and neurological. On a personal note, the ironic thing is that I have a grocery bag handle carrier as mentioned in a couple of the above postings, but I never use it. Now I think I might start using it, and also (much more importantly) maybe follow my own professional advice and make three or four trips to and from the vehicle from now on!

Just out of curiosity, have any previous posters ended up with any permanent numbness (i.e. greater than 5 or 10 percent deficit) following their episode with GBS?