View Single Post
Old 01-30-2007, 09:27 AM   #6 (permalink)
bryanc
MudFud
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Posts: 1,050
Default

So there are a few things that I would be concerned about--enough that I would recommend seeing a physician for a more thorough assessment. This isn't a run-of-the-mill injury and me not being there to assess your arm and wrist makes it difficult to narrow down the differential diagnosis.

But the things that come to mind are:

1) You've sustained an injury to the bone. This could a fracture, a partial fracture, a contusion, a stress fracture. Only an x-ray will be able to tell and at 3 months, with continuing pain, my concern is that you've injured your scaphoid, which is approximately in the area you describe on the thumb side of your wrist. Scaphoid fractures are incredibly tricky and can be challenging to treat, but if you walked into my (future) office and gave me that story, I'd want an x-ray pronto, and possibly a CT scan, depending on how the physical examination of your wrist went.

2) You've injured a nerve. This could be a nerve compression, or irritation as a result of your injury. Again, only an in-person exam can really differentiate between the two.

3) Unlikely, though possible, you've injured the tendon. And certainly, some of the symptoms you report are consistent with lateral epicondylitis. But seeing as you rank your elbow pain as being "less" of a priority than your wrist pain, this seems unlikely. Or perhaps you have two diagnoses.

Whatever the case is, you do not have a "benign" injury. The fact that you're swimming with closed fists is NOT normal adapation, nor does it actually make anything better (you're not moving towards increased function with this adaptation to your activity).

So, at the end of all the blabbering, the final point is that you need to see your Orthopaedics guy again.
__________________
Evidence-Based Fitness -- Critical Reviews of Fitness Research http://evidencebasedfitness.bl ogspot.com
bryanc is offline   Reply With Quote