A pictorial. Plz excuse some of the pics, I have a hard time handling the weight of my camera in my non surgeried hand so some pics are taken by my daughters.
The surgery is a success. I do not have the pain I normally had prior to surgery near as much. The hurting I do now in that forearm is surgery recovering hurt, and when the weather changes my tendons still throb something fierce. The surgery didn't fix the inflammed tendons, but released the compartment holding them so they have more room. But on a non-weather related day, 95% of the previous pain is gone. On a weather induced pain day, I'd say surgery took away 75-80% of the pain
April 7th...surgery date. Sent home, hurt like heck
Day 1: still hurt like heck.
Day 2: bulky dressing comes off, little less pain (even prior to the dressing being removed) although the physiotherepist did not seem to enjoy me having less pain and made it so I was quite sore.
all that dressing for this???? LOL
But seriously, if I were to have moved my thumb within those first 2 days, I would have busted the internal stiches on the band holding my thumb tendons in place, and would have been screwed. There's still a small chance of that but not unless i was to do something incredibly stupid like carry 20lbs on my thumb.
I have never had stiches like this before. Hopefully you can see it well enough in the pic...normally stiches are tied on the top of the incision. Mine, the skin was pulled up, then stiched from the side so the skin itself actually sticks up about 1/8". Weird huh. But supposedly the surgeon has really good luck with scaring by doing it this way. (since I'm writing this after they've already came out I can say that I think the scaring from the stich holes will be more noticable than the incision)
Day 3:
Started range of motion (ROM) exercises yesterday when the dressing came off. I won't even begin strength exercises until 4-6wks post surgery. I do them 4-6 times a day.
still uncomfortable. Especially with the exercises and the incredible bruising I have which just makes it all the worse.
Day 4: the bruising REALLY becomes apparant.... slight increase in pain along with the swelling. I'll let the pics show it....the yellow is NOT antiseptic... compared the pic when the dressing came off which shows no yellowing, to these ones.
Nice eh.... makes me wonder what they were doing to me behind that screen once I was finally frozen LOL.
fast forward now to the present time.
2wks post surgery:
The stiches were removed a few days ago, which is great..... my hand feels so good to be in hot water. Plus I can shower on my own now... WAHOOOOO. and at the end of this week, I can go in my hottub again.
I'm still doing the ROM exercises, and as of Friday April 17, I've started scar tissue management. Which is massaging the incision itself.... ummmmm. NOT FUN, but it will stop the scar tissue from adhering to the surrounding nerves/tendons/ligaments/etc. I think because I still have swelling and bruising, that makes the massaging hurt even more.
I still can't do anything with that hand, have to keep a splint on it when I'm active (hate the splint, but can't fit in my custom ones yet from swelling). I can type with it (since I don't use my thumb on that hand for the space bar), carefully flip pages in a book...but nothing with any weight or pressure right now.
- bruising is going down finally
- I start regular PT today ( only thing different is that the PT will do some massage, and ultrasound. My exercises stay the same for now.)
- found a nice way to do my massage. You see, since my other hand is screwed up, it is awfully painful to press with that hand to do the massage.... so what I have been doing is using my hot rocks to do the massage. The heat helps soooo much, and I don't have to put as much force to get the same result.
- still have the numbness around parts of the thumb, which hopefully will go away but there's a chance it might not and I can live with that if I have to.
- I try to not wear the brace as much as possible...the days that I do have to wear it, I stiffen up so easily. If I'm able to keep the brace off, then I retain some flexibility in my wrist.
- driving is easier now because I can use my fingertips to hold the wheel as well.... still can't shut the door with that hand though. LOL
- still need to keep it elevated, especially if I'm going for a walk... I'm fine for bout 20mins, then it starts throbing so I put it on my head for a few mins till it eases.
So all in all, I am quite pleased with this surgery and would highly highly recommend it to anyone who has severe DeQuervians. For me, it will probally be at least 3mos recovery due to the severity of my tendinitis....although I've heard of people with light to moderate jobs going back to work 4-6wks after surgery..... it all depends on the initial impairment and how well you recover, of course some people don't do their exercises regularly which hinders recovery.... I do them every 2-3hrs, unless I'm out somewhere and forget but then I pay for it because I stiffen up so badly.
Anyways, thanks for reading my book, I hope someone out there in internet world can benefit from my experience.
The surgery is a success. I do not have the pain I normally had prior to surgery near as much. The hurting I do now in that forearm is surgery recovering hurt, and when the weather changes my tendons still throb something fierce. The surgery didn't fix the inflammed tendons, but released the compartment holding them so they have more room. But on a non-weather related day, 95% of the previous pain is gone. On a weather induced pain day, I'd say surgery took away 75-80% of the pain
April 7th...surgery date. Sent home, hurt like heck
Day 1: still hurt like heck.
Day 2: bulky dressing comes off, little less pain (even prior to the dressing being removed) although the physiotherepist did not seem to enjoy me having less pain and made it so I was quite sore.
all that dressing for this???? LOL
But seriously, if I were to have moved my thumb within those first 2 days, I would have busted the internal stiches on the band holding my thumb tendons in place, and would have been screwed. There's still a small chance of that but not unless i was to do something incredibly stupid like carry 20lbs on my thumb.
I have never had stiches like this before. Hopefully you can see it well enough in the pic...normally stiches are tied on the top of the incision. Mine, the skin was pulled up, then stiched from the side so the skin itself actually sticks up about 1/8". Weird huh. But supposedly the surgeon has really good luck with scaring by doing it this way. (since I'm writing this after they've already came out I can say that I think the scaring from the stich holes will be more noticable than the incision)
Day 3:
Started range of motion (ROM) exercises yesterday when the dressing came off. I won't even begin strength exercises until 4-6wks post surgery. I do them 4-6 times a day.
still uncomfortable. Especially with the exercises and the incredible bruising I have which just makes it all the worse.
Day 4: the bruising REALLY becomes apparant.... slight increase in pain along with the swelling. I'll let the pics show it....the yellow is NOT antiseptic... compared the pic when the dressing came off which shows no yellowing, to these ones.
Nice eh.... makes me wonder what they were doing to me behind that screen once I was finally frozen LOL.
fast forward now to the present time.
2wks post surgery:
The stiches were removed a few days ago, which is great..... my hand feels so good to be in hot water. Plus I can shower on my own now... WAHOOOOO. and at the end of this week, I can go in my hottub again.
I'm still doing the ROM exercises, and as of Friday April 17, I've started scar tissue management. Which is massaging the incision itself.... ummmmm. NOT FUN, but it will stop the scar tissue from adhering to the surrounding nerves/tendons/ligaments/etc. I think because I still have swelling and bruising, that makes the massaging hurt even more.
I still can't do anything with that hand, have to keep a splint on it when I'm active (hate the splint, but can't fit in my custom ones yet from swelling). I can type with it (since I don't use my thumb on that hand for the space bar), carefully flip pages in a book...but nothing with any weight or pressure right now.
- bruising is going down finally
- I start regular PT today ( only thing different is that the PT will do some massage, and ultrasound. My exercises stay the same for now.)
- found a nice way to do my massage. You see, since my other hand is screwed up, it is awfully painful to press with that hand to do the massage.... so what I have been doing is using my hot rocks to do the massage. The heat helps soooo much, and I don't have to put as much force to get the same result.
- still have the numbness around parts of the thumb, which hopefully will go away but there's a chance it might not and I can live with that if I have to.
- I try to not wear the brace as much as possible...the days that I do have to wear it, I stiffen up so easily. If I'm able to keep the brace off, then I retain some flexibility in my wrist.
- driving is easier now because I can use my fingertips to hold the wheel as well.... still can't shut the door with that hand though. LOL
- still need to keep it elevated, especially if I'm going for a walk... I'm fine for bout 20mins, then it starts throbing so I put it on my head for a few mins till it eases.
So all in all, I am quite pleased with this surgery and would highly highly recommend it to anyone who has severe DeQuervians. For me, it will probally be at least 3mos recovery due to the severity of my tendinitis....although I've heard of people with light to moderate jobs going back to work 4-6wks after surgery..... it all depends on the initial impairment and how well you recover, of course some people don't do their exercises regularly which hinders recovery.... I do them every 2-3hrs, unless I'm out somewhere and forget but then I pay for it because I stiffen up so badly.
Anyways, thanks for reading my book, I hope someone out there in internet world can benefit from my experience.