Another question for the PT's out there...

[KnottedYet]

Hey, I went back as almost middle-aged, and I wasn't even the oldest person in my class! (the oldest was 52) Go for it!

Did the hand therapist have any suggestions for splinting? Silver ring splints are popular for people who work with their hands. Totally depends on what is going on with the hand, of course.

If the hand therapist says it takes time to recover, I'd go by what she says.

[beccaB]

What is the silver ring splint you're talking about?

[KnottedYet]

Kind of like a thumb spica, but you can still use the thumb for work.
There are a gazillion different kinds of silver ring spints for all kinds of hand and thumb issues. http://www.silverringsplint.com/prob...-mcp-problems/

[Cataboo]

Mild thread hijack since PTs & wrists are being discussed in here... I've had tendonitis or something in my right wrist for years. I've gotten all my bikes adjusted so that I can ride without my hand going numb. I had my wrists checked last year for carpal tunnel by EMG - no carpal tunnel showed. I'm usually very careful about keeping my wrist position neutral no matter what I do. Whenever I go to a doctor, I get either told carpal tunnel or tendonitis - and there's no getting someone back who has already decided wrist pain + sometimes numbness = carpal tunnel.

But all of a sudden this year (and this may be entirely unrelated to all the issues I've had with the right wrist), my right hand has been going numb paddling - it starts off with the thumb going numb, and the tips of the middle & 3rd fingers... and then progresses to the entire hand. Using a smaller paddle blade helps, but it still goes numb. I just spent entirely too much on a paddle with an oblong shaft that it takes about 10-15 miles before I start getting the numbness in the thumb & other fingertips and the numbness doesn't progress much beyond that... Which is a huge improvement. I've had several people that teach kayaking, race, whatever look at me while paddling to try to figure out if I'm doing anything wrong - my wrist is definitely neutral while paddling, and I open my hand/fingers when pushing the blade away from me - so I don't have a death grip and I'm constantly opening and closing my hand. Someone suggested more torso rotation would help...

Any other suggestions?

[OakLeaf]

FWIW ... you're not specific what his injury was, but a few years back I bruised a tendon and a nerve right near the base of my first metacarpal (could never figure out whether to call it a hand, thumb or wrist injury ). Had all kinds of PT (which my insurance pre-approved and then wouldn't cover because it was done by an OT ), had an ortho immobilize it for a while (big mistake), eventually the only thing that healed it was TIME. Eight months of agonizing, frustrating time.

[beccaB]

Mild thread hijack since PTs & wrists are being discussed in here... I've had tendonitis or something in my right wrist for years. I've gotten all my bikes adjusted so that I can ride without my hand going numb. I had my wrists checked last year for carpal tunnel by EMG - no carpal tunnel showed. I'm usually very careful about keeping my wrist position neutral no matter what I do. Whenever I go to a doctor, I get either told carpal tunnel or tendonitis - and there's no getting someone back who has already decided wrist pain + sometimes numbness = carpal tunnel.

But all of a sudden this year (and this may be entirely unrelated to all the issues I've had with the right wrist), my right hand has been going numb paddling - it starts off with the thumb going numb, and the tips of the middle & 3rd fingers... and then progresses to the entire hand. Using a smaller paddle blade helps, but it still goes numb. I just spent entirely too much on a paddle with an oblong shaft that it takes about 10-15 miles before I start getting the numbness in the thumb & other fingertips and the numbness doesn't progress much beyond that... Which is a huge improvement. I've had several people that teach kayaking, race, whatever look at me while paddling to try to figure out if I'm doing anything wrong - my wrist is definitely neutral while paddling, and I open my hand/fingers when pushing the blade away from me - so I don't have a death grip and I'm constantly opening and closing my hand. Someone suggested more torso rotation would help...

Any other suggestions?

I work at a Curves women's workout club, and I went to convention right after I was hired. I had been a Curves member for 6 years. I was opening and closing my hands on a few of the machines, and when I went through the circuit workout at convention, someone from corporate told me not to open and close my hands on the grips because I was setting myself up for injury that way. They said to keep a solid grip. I don't know anything about kayaking, but maybe the movements are related.

[beccaB]

Oakleaf-did you have to stop biking? I hope you will tell me no....

[OakLeaf]

Oakleaf-did you have to stop biking? I hope you will tell me no....

At the time I wasn't bicycling, but because they kept prescribing rest, rest, rest, I had to stop motorcycling, and yeah, that was awful.

BUT. The pain wasn't so bad that it would've interfered with my ability to brake, steer or pull the throttle, and in retrospect I don't think rest accelerated the healing at all. Even though I told every health care practitioner I saw how the injury occurred, I think the treatment they prescribed was more appropriate to a strain or sprain and not a simple bruise, and I don't think they ever really isolated how much of my pain was from the nerve and how much was from the tendon.

JME, with a really freakish sort of injury (picked up a stepladder the same way I'd always done, and the edge of the step put the full weight of the ladder right onto that soft tissue). Even touching a ladder totally freaks me out, now, never mind I have a phobia of falling!

I have a strong suspicion that some of the PTs didn't believe that resting was a good idea, but were deferring to the orthos. And in turn, because it wasn't a surgical injury, the hand surgeons basically didn't even want to know me. I've had that experience before - if it's not surgical, the orthos just say "no activity outside of PT," when that turns out to be really damaging, and the best thing is to keep the muscles strong and the joints loose by normal activity. Hopefully I've learned my lesson about that if I get another injury.

Still, I think the possibility that time alone will heal - and rest may not - is something to be discussed frankly with practitioners. Especially with something like a hand, which not only is a MAJOR interference with ADLs, but wound up causing tendinitis in elbows and wrist because of shifting all the work of that hand to other joints, doing things backwards and upside down, etc. Probably didn't help my TMJ either, because of all the stuff I had to hold with my teeth.

I recommend everyone going without one hand for three hours, just once, just to see what it's like.