Spring 2013:
It all started in my fourth semester in college. I was taking three literature classes and working 15 hours a week at my retail job. It was four days of hard core writing and note-taking followed by three days of hard core folding and jewelry case lock turning. It was a vicious, seldom interrupted cycle of work. As I remember, all of my professors were also incredibly fond of written essay exams. Woohoo.This was the semester that I bought my first wrist brace. My left hand was giving my hell for days on end. So I began giving myself guidelines to live by:
- No use between the hours of 12 AM and 6 AM (was most convenient as I was sleeping, but the idea was to get six hours of hand rest a day)
- Wear brace to bed
- Heat before use, ice after
- Weekly epsom salt baths
- Anti-inflamatories for pain and rest at onset of pain
June 2014:
The locks on the jewelry desk at work decide that they've had enough. Each lock decides it only wants to be opened a certain way and I've gotta figure it out. My hours increase because it is the summer and I am supposed to have more time off, but I am also taking three online classes (yay more typing!) By mid month, I am wearing both braces full time, taking medicine and icing everyday just to have some relief. My mom, a nurse, does some preliminary tests for carpal, ulnar, and radial tunnel syndomes and decides it is time to go to a doctor, so we get a recommendation from my primary physician on who to go to. She sets me up with Dr. C, one of the leading hand specialists in the area.
July
I have my first and second visits to Dr. C's nurse practitioner who takes x-rays of my hand and does a couple resistance tests on my hands. She diagnoses me with lateral epicondylitis (or tennis elbow) in both of my arms. According to her, the overcompensation of my wrists for my elbow's inadequacy is straining my wrists and causing the pain. I get a new appointment and some elbow cuffs to wear with my braces at work.
Emotional/Mental Sidenote: Mom and I are not so sure about this. If the majority of the pain is in my wrists and NOT my elbows, why are my elbows the problem? The cuffs pretty much do nothing besides getting my customers to all ask the same question:
Me: Hi, How are you doing today?
Customer: Ooh carpal tunnel huh?
Me: ... No lateral epicondylitis (I find that using scientific terms can shut up pretty
Customer: Oh, well that looks painful! much everyone except for a nurse)
Me: Yes it is.....
Customer: Well my brother/sister/uncle/coworker/mom/spouse had carpal tunnel and have you been to a doctor yet?? They did surgery on him/her and her hands haven't-been-the-same-since/ were-cured-its-a-miracle!
Me: Good for them.... That'll be $42.68
Customer: Here you go. Well have you done [insert old wives remedy]?? I hear that helps.
Me: No. Thank you for shopping with us have a nice day.... Next in line please!
*repeats process*
It was more painful than the problem itself. Don't get me wrong, I loved that the entirety of the store's clientele was concerned for my well-being, but if I have to have that conversation ONE MORE TIME I may explode. You'd think people would have something better to talk about. It's like when a woman is pregnant and all people want to talk about is the baby/pregnancy/gender/due date. That must get annoying after a while. I do my best not to talk about the obvious things about a person.
Somewhere around August/September/October
During this month's doctor's visit, I meet Dr. C himself and he explains that while a steroid shot would help mask my pain, it would also prohibit me from monitoring it which would not be helpful since we are trying to see if the pain will go away. We decide that prescribing me with "professional" pain killers would be best. He gives me a prescription for Duexis, an ibuprofen dose so strong it comes with a stomach acid reducer so that I don't get ulcers if I take it. I'm instructed to take it only for wrist pain and to continue to wear my braces and cuffs only if my arms hurt.
The next thing he does is set me up with a nerve conduction study. I meet Dr. P who is one of the best nerve testers in town. After a three-hour-long visit, he determines that there are no nerve blockages in my arms, my strength is normal, and so is my flexibility.
My grandmother also gave me this stuff called Arnicare gel. It is a topical gel that helps inflamed joints feel better. I use it like a lotion on my forearms and hands before bed at night, and I feel better in the morning.
My grandmother also gave me this stuff called Arnicare gel. It is a topical gel that helps inflamed joints feel better. I use it like a lotion on my forearms and hands before bed at night, and I feel better in the morning.
Emotional/Mental Sidenote: This magic pill knocks out all pain in a matter of minutes. I only have to wear my braces now, and I have completely stopped wearing the cuffs. I still keep them around though. Just in case. Mom and I begin to wonder about proactively doing something to help my situation. I can't just take pills for the rest of my working life.
January 13, 2015
I ask Dr. C about physical therapy. He says strength therapy would be better as we are not trying to rehabilitate the muscle, but strengthen it. He sets me up at a local PT clinic.
January 28, 2015
At this clinic, I met Ms. T, the lady I will be working with and she takes down my medical history. We do more strength tests and she also measures my flexibility and double-jointed-ness. She thinks it may be a contributing factor. I am double jointed in both wrists, both elbows, and in both legs and knees (legs and knees are irrelevant, but she checked just in case I develop problems there later). At the end of the visit, she gives me two Eggsercizers, one in green (softest) and one in purple (firmest). I am to squeeze them (one in each hand) on and off for two to three minutes for five seconds at a time and then switch hands and repeat. This is to be done three times a day unless I am in pain (because we don't want to make it feel worse). So far I have only been doing it once a day because I have either been in pain from working or school (or forgotten). PT is going to be twice a week at least until I next go back to Dr. C so we can see if I have been improving. I hope this works.February 9, 2015
Since my first PT session, I have been back a couple more times. When I go, we begin by doing paraffin wraps and applying moist heat to my hands for 15 minutes. A lot of stuff done at PT is by timers. After the paraffin, I normally do the eggsercizers or this exercise where Ms. T has me roll out medium tough putty and punch holes in it using small, medium and large PVC pipe. The whole idea of this exercise is to use my muscles while also keeping my wrists straight so as to build up the muscles. After that, I have to do an exercise where I rotate small and medium Baoding balls in each hand for two minutes. In the last two sessions, I have also had to dig in uncooked rice and dried corn for two minutes on each hand. Just today, we started doing exercises with resistance bands (boy do my muscles hurt today). As much as I didn't think these exercises were going to be challenging, I know now I was pretty wrong. They are actually kinda hurting so Ms. T lets me rest if I need a break.
March 8, 2015
I have finished my first round of PT and am waiting for approval to continue. I find that every week that I have physical therapy twice, my hands feel awesome all week, but if I happen to miss for one reason or we do an evaluation instead of actually working on my hands, I feel pain that week. We have continued with the same routine for the last few appointments: ultrasound therapy (which puts heat on the core of my wrist as opposed to the paraffin that works on the outside), rice and corn, putty, resistance bands, and this new electric therapy thing which involves connecting me to wires and then wrapping me in heat for ten minutes. I need to figure out what that does.
April 29, 2015
I was released by my doctor about a month ago. I never got approval to continue with PT. I was feeling pretty good until about three days ago when all of my teachers remembered what we still had to accomplish before the end of the semester which is two weeks from now. I have also been driving way more frequently than usual this semester, so that's not helping.
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