Hi! Remember me?

So…..I’ve been meaning to update here for a while in case anyone still suffers from wrist-o-mania, so what better time than now?

If you haven’t noticed (and you probably haven’t ), I slipped into quiet retirement after the 1st of this year. I played 3 post-surgery shows, one on Dec 6th, one on the 20th, and a 45 minute show on Jan 1st. By the end of that show my wrist was almost on fire , so I decided to space out the shows a little more, and every time I’d go to practice, I’d have less and less time before the pain returned. I ended up putting the guitar down for 2 months before I touched it again, and when I did, I lasted all of 10 minutes.

Work still caused a little pain, but nothing that I couldn’t deal with, and since I wasn’t playing anymore it wasn’t too bad….until about a month ago, when the pain slowly creeped back to constant. Then I stupidly picked up the guitar on May 6th, lasted 10 minutes, and was at my doctor’s office the next day.

Got my referral, went back to Dr. Hand on the 14th, and he was concerned enough to give me 2 cortisone shots, one at the surgery site and one under my thumb, as it looks like the DeQuervain’s Syndrome that we thought I didn’t have is starting to flare up. He also gave me a new wrist brace (I should really start a surplus store for left wrist braces…if anybody needs one, gimme a call), which resembles the cast I wore after the surgery, cept this one’s removable and allows a tad more motion.

12 days later, and the surgery site isn’t too bad….it still hurts, but I think that’s from underuse since it’s restricted most of the day, so when I take the brace off, it’s gonna be a little tired. The site under the thumb is getting worse every day tho, and I’m a little worried this time. I really don’t want surgery again, and I’m 95% sure that’s where I’m headed. The day before I saw him and got the shots, my wrist hurt almost as much as it did right before sugery. Now….the Dequervain’s spot…I think it might be worse than before surgery. I hate taking pain medication stronger than ibuprofen (weird for a pothead, I know…), I’ve done all the therapy exercises they can come up with…I still do them as routine stretching during the day (well, I did up until I saw Dr. Hand).

So I ask again…Does anyone have a spare left wrist?