How long can symptoms from cubital tunnel syndrome last before it's considered permanent damage to the ulnar nerve?

Ulnar nerve: It's not the duration of the symptoms, it's the severity. If there is a lot of weakness in moving the fingers together and apart for example, there is a motor deficit, and that indicates a need to be aggressive. It is handy to test this by placing a card between the fingers and ask someone to pull it out. There should be some resistance there. With weakness, the card falls out right away.

Varies: If you had a technically successful surgery for cubitsl tunnel syndrome and still have symptoms more than 6-8 months after surgery, the two most common possibilities are either nerve damage due to the severity and length if time it was compressed preoperatively; or there may be other conditions contributing (such as a pinched nerve in the neck).

1-2 years: The answer to this question is controversial, even for the Doctors` community. Nerve tissue is very sensitive to hypoxia, which takes place when a nerve is being presed between rigid walls, which is the case of cubital tunnel syndrome. The recovery from the symptoms is usually incomplete and unpredictable, but some cases have recovered if the decompression is performed within 1 year.