Re: Carpal tunnel

[Guest guest]

,

glad you went ahead and had the surgery and it went well. I had problems with

my right wrist off and on for several years. I'd been to 2 different ortho docs

and they both said it was carpal tunnel. I even scheduled surgery once and then

cancelled it. Last year with Nikki's wedding getting closer and all the things

I was doing with my hands, the wrist got to the point that I just wasn't willing

to tolerate the pain. I went to a different ortho that specializes in hand

surgery. One of the two previous orthos was a hand surgeon, also. Anyway, the

3rd ortho I went to took one look at my hand after listening carefully to me

describe where it hurt, what made it worse, etc. and he told me that I had a

torn cartillage in my wrist. He told me I might have a little bit of carpal

tunnel but that it was a torn cartillage causing my pain. He told me that I

have very little space between the bones in my wrists - just a genetic thing.

Add that with the inflamation of lupus and it was a tear waiting to happen. I

had the surgery in Nov 03 and the cartillage was torn much worse than he had

suspected. I wasn't allowed to pick up anything with my right hand for two

weeks. After that I could not pick up anything heavier than a coffee cup for an

additional 8 weeks. The ortho showed me pics of my horribly jagged cartillage.

He said it had obviously been torn for quite some time. Geez, no wonder I'd had

pain in my right wrist for so long! Once I recovered from the surgery, my wrist

has been great! The scary thing is that if I'd let either of the first two

orthos do carpal tunnel surgery on me, it wouldn't have done anything for my

pain because the tear was in an area that they wouldn't have seen when doing

carpal tunnel surgery.

I honestly didn't realize how much my wrist had been hurting until after it got

better. I had dealt with the pain for so long that it just seemed normal. It's

been almost a year since the surgery and I honestly don't even remember the last

time I had any pain at all in my wrist, arm, or hand.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

W