(no subject)

[ravena_kade]

Sad seeing my friend tonight.

There really are no words that make sense at this time. She is hurting, but trying to carry on... and she says she needs to to survive. I know the finances are devastating.

She is having ceramic classes to bring in money...even the day of the wake.

I told her that she could call any time. I can help.I know what needs to be done at a shop. I can help her move stuff and help her with moving some of the work stuff around at her house too.

Tomorrow is the wake and Friday the funeral. I told the league and no one has gotten back to me. Oh well... they have the info. There is someone looking for order items, but she never got back to me. She can ask me forth tomorrow, but I am not available on Friday for that. Her loss. She can drive up another day.

My hands are acting up. I have been trying to get an appointment. Called the hand specialist office 3 times with no call back and emailed the portal asking for an appointment. No word. My hands hurt so much at night that it wakes me up. Usually around 2 AM.

Comments

[guy_todd]

I can't imagine what your friend is going through. :(
And WTF is up with the hand specialist that they can't be arsed to return calls or emails? :\

[gwendraith]

Your poor friend, she must be feeling very much all at sea :(

I hope you manage to get an appointment for your hands. That's truly crap medical care :/

[fionaniconnor]

Go to an urgent care about your hands and get something done about it. This is madness.

[chris_warrior]

does wearing the wrist braces at night help? when i was first starting massage (especially chair massage) i went through this and knew it was the first stirrings of carpal tunnel, and clenching/flexing my wrists at night (stress, likely) was making it worse. what helped was hot pack on the wrist, massaging the fascia of the wrists outward from the center point (stretching the tunnel through which the nerves go) and then icing. and the braces, whenever you can get yourself to wear them. also anti-inflammatories, if your stomach can handle them. and, probably mostly importantly, stretching the wrist in the entire ROM (range of motion), especially extension (to stretch the flexor surface). this is all stuff PT should have told you, though.

and that's all if it's the carpal tunnel - did they check to see if you had an impingement further up? (like under pec minor, or under scalene/in neck)?

do you still have access to a PT?

[ravena_kade]

The thought was that I injured my hands, but frankly I can see injuring my right hand, but not my left in the same way. I don't use my left hand for much. They said it might take a couple months if it was an injury. I have been trying to make an appointment but no one is getting back to me.

PT did gove me some stretches to do and I do them,

They didn't think it was carpal tunnel...but I do feel I was blown off.

My hands are swollen. There seems to be fluid build up in the ligament sheathes. it hurts to to bend my knuckles. That doesn't sound like carpal tunnel. My wrists will also hurt like someone very strong is grabbing them and won't let go. I wake up in the middle of the night in pain.

I am going to start wearing the wrist splints again to bed. The PT person said that she dint think they would help.

I would like an anti inflammatory...but I don't know if I should be taking hugs doses of ibuprofen. It works, but it will kill the kidneys.

I'd really like a diagnosis because I am afraid of loosing the use of my hands.

[chris_warrior]

actually, the pain in the knuckles _could_ be from the swelling, and the swelling _could_ be from reduced circulation due to nerve impingement and positioning. yes, you could have injured them and the swelling could be your body trying to heal the injury, but it seems odd that it's both hands, as you said, and i would expect someone to remember the actual injury if it is causing this much pain. it actually sounds exactly like carpal to me, symptom-wise, but i'm not there. i would have expected - given how much you use your hands (painting, ceramaics, keyboards, etc) that any competent PT/MD could have correctly diagnosed carpal tunnel.

there are also topical creams you could try rubbing into your hands to help bring swelling down, things with arnica in them that will help blood flow. and i'd definitely try icing the wrists after you've done your stretches. if the braces at night help, to me that's a very good indication you may be dealing with carpal tunnel. and i would look into Aleve (naproxen sodium) if you want to try a non-ibrupofen, non-acetomefen anti-inflammatory.

as far as trying to diagnose, the tendons to the fingers go through the carpal tunnel and attach up higher on the radius and ulna; this is why when the muscles are over-used and the tendons swell, you can end up pressing on the nerves and get a ton of pain (like someone is grabbing you), even when you're not actually bending the fingers. but you'd also be getting numbness in the hands. if you're not getting numbness, just pain, i suppose you could have some sort of advanced arthritic pain going on, but you seem pretty young for that.