Second surgery on wrist is complete!
So, as a refresher: my right wrist was causing me very terrible pain for about four years. We went to so many doctors, and finally ended up with one who figured out it was a cartilage tear due to my ulna outgrowing the raduis. I had surgery to repair the cartilage and shorten my ulna. I had almost two years of no pain! But a few months ago, kinda after I did dips (exercise is bad for you), I think, it started hurting again. Same pain. I was pretty sure I had torn the cartilage again! Which was concerning, because that would mean that the ulna shortening wasn't done properly.
After a drive down to see the doctor who had fixed me the first time (she moved to another state), she said to treat it as tendonitis this time. This is how we had started last time, years of "idk what this is so let's just go with tendonitis, then carpal tunnel, even though we know it isn't either of those"
It was very disappointing that we were going to go through a mess of things strictly to hope something worked. I got an anti-inflammatory injection that wasn't cortisone, because Im never letting anyone give that to me again after it dissolved the tissue from my wrist, that made the pain so much worse. I do not have good luck with injections. My hand straight up refused to even hold a pencil for two months after that injection. It just dropped it.So I couldn't even push through the pain to make it through classes and tests.
But that doctor gave me a rec to someone just an hour away in Knoxville. he was really great and explained that a cartilage tear would definitely show up on an MRI because I had surgery on that before. So he did not make me take an MRI (I've found doctors really like to have you do frequent MRIs and XRAYs despite it being unlikely to find anything) for no reason, and agreed that exploratory surgery was the best route. No bullshit grasping at straws!
So we had the surgery this morning--the UT hospital was great. They got me back on at 7:10, on the dot, and made sure both my mom and I were comfortable. The entire staff was so friendly and caring Only there for 4 hours :D
Recovery seems like it isn't going to take long; Im already walking around just fine. The lidocane is still in there though, so we'll see where I am tomorrow-- but I'm still thinking it'll be fast. The scope holes from last time were really tiny, and it was just the whole cutting part of my bone off thing that made the recovery so bad.
Turns out my wrist was a mess of scar tissue! And scar tissue can tear and catch on the bone like my cartilage had last time, cause issues in range of motion, and adhere to nerves and cause them to get yanked around when you move.
There isn't room for it to disperse in my wrist, so the injection making it hurt more makes since because the fluid would have taken up even more room and shoved that scar tissue around even more.
Forcing my wrist into the dip position (I was surprised it went there) likely just moved/tore the tissue into a spot that made the pain start.
So no cartilage tear, but there isn't much of it left, and so I do have post traumatic arthritis. But the last surgery went just fine! No issues with my ulna length, and I would have had the arthritis back during my period of no pain--so hopefully it won't bother me much.
I wont know for sure if the pain is gone until I've healed, but it sounds like this would explain everything. I am soooo relieved! Can't wait until I can start using it again.
College without the ability to write really sucked.
After a drive down to see the doctor who had fixed me the first time (she moved to another state), she said to treat it as tendonitis this time. This is how we had started last time, years of "idk what this is so let's just go with tendonitis, then carpal tunnel, even though we know it isn't either of those"
It was very disappointing that we were going to go through a mess of things strictly to hope something worked. I got an anti-inflammatory injection that wasn't cortisone, because Im never letting anyone give that to me again after it dissolved the tissue from my wrist, that made the pain so much worse. I do not have good luck with injections. My hand straight up refused to even hold a pencil for two months after that injection. It just dropped it.So I couldn't even push through the pain to make it through classes and tests.
But that doctor gave me a rec to someone just an hour away in Knoxville. he was really great and explained that a cartilage tear would definitely show up on an MRI because I had surgery on that before. So he did not make me take an MRI (I've found doctors really like to have you do frequent MRIs and XRAYs despite it being unlikely to find anything) for no reason, and agreed that exploratory surgery was the best route. No bullshit grasping at straws!
So we had the surgery this morning--the UT hospital was great. They got me back on at 7:10, on the dot, and made sure both my mom and I were comfortable. The entire staff was so friendly and caring Only there for 4 hours :D
Recovery seems like it isn't going to take long; Im already walking around just fine. The lidocane is still in there though, so we'll see where I am tomorrow-- but I'm still thinking it'll be fast. The scope holes from last time were really tiny, and it was just the whole cutting part of my bone off thing that made the recovery so bad.
Turns out my wrist was a mess of scar tissue! And scar tissue can tear and catch on the bone like my cartilage had last time, cause issues in range of motion, and adhere to nerves and cause them to get yanked around when you move.
There isn't room for it to disperse in my wrist, so the injection making it hurt more makes since because the fluid would have taken up even more room and shoved that scar tissue around even more.
Forcing my wrist into the dip position (I was surprised it went there) likely just moved/tore the tissue into a spot that made the pain start.
So no cartilage tear, but there isn't much of it left, and so I do have post traumatic arthritis. But the last surgery went just fine! No issues with my ulna length, and I would have had the arthritis back during my period of no pain--so hopefully it won't bother me much.
I wont know for sure if the pain is gone until I've healed, but it sounds like this would explain everything. I am soooo relieved! Can't wait until I can start using it again.
College without the ability to write really sucked.