Lunate bone cyst

[Paul Connolly]

After almost a year of sporadic wrist pain, I had an MRI and the results showed that I have a 4mm subcortical cyst in the dorsal aspect of my lunate bone. The MRI also revealed a minimal area of increased signal in the scapholunate ligament dorsally but no evidence of a full thickness tear or widening of the scapholunate distance.

Has anyone ever dealt with this type of injury/limitation. I'd appreciate any feedback, advice, etc... I'm due to follow up with the ortho. this week.

Thanks in advance for your feedback,
-PC

[bryanc]

Send Russ a PM to interpret the MRI. I have personally never read, nor ordered an MRI of the hand/wrist.

[russ]

Just saw this.

Not sure how old you are or what sort of wrist injuries you may have sustained in the past, but a 4mm subcortical or subchondral cyst is rather small and could very well be degenerative in nature (this could be colloquially termed as 'mild' or 'early' arthritis). I'll let your orthopedist determine the treatment options as that falls outside of my expertise, but I would suspect that he will recommend to leave the cyst itself alone. I suppose there might be a possibility that the orthopedist would recommend a steroid injection if he feels that joint inflammation is causing your symptoms (an injection doesn't address the cyst, per se).

The increased signal in the scapholunate ligament could indicate a partial tear (can't tell without seeing the images how high-grade the tear is).

Did you fall on an outstretched hand?

[Paul Connolly]

Thanks for the reply/feedback. No acute injury caused the injury. My ortho. and chiro. are both going to go the manual therapy route. I've started on some rice bucket exercises to strengthen the muscles in the wrist/forearm. I'm planning on doing NSAIDs (800 mg) as needed if the pain gets too much. It's basically uncomfortable and I'm avoiding anything with hyperextension stuff that aggravates it (ft. squat grip with elbows up and wrists bent back & hang cleans- my 2 fav. exercises of course). Excessive computer time (typing) aggravates it too. I'm thinking for upper body power, I'll stick to med. ball throws and jump squat variations for lower body power. To answer, I'm 29 and sometimes feel 89 .

Keep me posted on any additional feedback.