Diagnose my hand pain!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Disclaimer: You are probably not a doctor. If you are a doctor, you are not MY doctor. So officially you don’t know anything and I won’t do anything based on what you say. Also I’m seeing my real live doctor in about a week. I’m just trying to figure out what the likely possibilities are.

Background: I’m righthanded. I work on a computer all day. This involves mousing, and I usually mouse right-handed (though with a very ergonomic trackball - the Logitech M570 if that’s relevant).

In the past, I’ve occasionally had twinges from overuse but it always went away promptly (especially once I learned to mouse with either hand). Not in years, in any case.

But 3 weeks ago, I started having pain in my right wrist for no apparent reason. From the sketches at Wikipedia, the end of the ulna (#2) is tender to the touch but does not hurt when I move it; I experience some pain radiating between the bones for an inch or two toward the elbow; I also have a lot of pain around hand bones (ring finger bones mainly) if I move my hand wrong - enough so that I use “driving words” some times. That might be around bone H in the drawing.

It’s interfering with some activities - can’t use a knife to cut anything super tough, holding a pen to write is painful, getting dressed is painful. I bought a wrist brace which makes typing a bit easier (reduces the bad flexing somewhat) but has otherwise not done much. I’m mousing entirely left-handed - which, if mousing were the issue, should have helped.

If I rotate my hand in certain ways, it hurts. If I use my other hand to rotate that hand (i.e. don’t use the muscles etc. of my right hand), it does not hurt as much.

I haven’t fallen on that arm in… um, not as long as I’d wish, but it’s been a few years. I did break that elbow about 20 years back (it’s how I learned to mouse left-handed).

Carpal tunnel is the obvious thing that comes to mind but I always thought that involved pain in the fingers themselves, including numbness - I had some of that during my last pregnancy. Nada, this time. Maybe some kind of tendinitis? Some weird sort of arthritis related to the old broken elbow? (radial head, so nowhere near this).

And in either case, since splinting hasn’t worked (and ibuprofen isn’t doing much… maybe if I took that more regularly!), what else might they try?

2

Get tested for R.A.
It hurts in weird ways. Sometimes starting in the small joints of the fingers and toes. IANAD but I am a suffering patient. There are new meds for this now, they might help you. Rest it is the best advice I can give you. Oh and don’t drink soda pop!

P.S. take a couple real aspirin and see if it helps. Of course you can’t take that for very long, if you like your stomach.

3

Take Aleve and soak your hand/wrist in ice water for 20 minutes or so every couple of hours. This is meant to alleviate inflammation and swelling. And try to support your hand so as to rest your wrist muscles.

4

While this probably isn’t the case, do some poking around for things regarding your ulnar nerve. Issues with that nerve will affect your pinky and ring finger.

Cubital Tunnel syndrome, when you have issues with that nerve, as they pass through the elbow will cause pain in your hand as well. If I have my elbow bent for too long (say, more than 20-30 minutes), I end up with pain in my elbow. If I fall asleep with it bent, the pain in my elbow is awful and those two fingers will often be asleep.

If you go right in between those two bones in your elbow and tap that space a few times, you’ll hit your ‘funny bone’ a few times. That’s the nerve.

Like I said, probably not the case, but I thought I’d toss it out there.

5

Acid reflux? I get similar in my left hand, arm and chest, did the rounds of tests when I was convinced it was my heart playing up, and eventually found it was gastro-intestinal. I still get it from time to time, but it’s mostly dietary and antacids help.

6

As someone above said, rheumatoid arthritis and I’m going to chime in with carpal tunnel.

7

If I was going to guess it would be possibly tendonitis of extensor carpi ulnaris. I suspect you unconsciously try to keep your pinky and ring finger off your famcy mouse so they don’t accidentally hit some button.

Does not sound like carpal tunnel syndrome.

8

Reflux, now there’s a reach… then again, reflux can mimic other things so I won’t rule it out; I have it and it mimics asthma. I’m actually having an endoscopy in a few weeks as part of that. I suspect it isn’t the culprit here simply because there are clear ‘move = pain’ symptoms.

Interestingly, not 15 minutes after I posted earlier, I moved funny while sitting on the couch, and felt something in the wrist (between the ulnar end and the elbow sort of go TWANG between the arm bones like a rubber band catching on something, and it HURT. As in, take-your-breath-away and feel queasy hurt. Now the whole joint hurts. I can still move my fingers but am not enjoying it. I guess I’ll hit urgent care or the orthopedist tomorrow. I suppose I should use my other hand to hit :D.

RA :eek: Yeah, that would suck big time…:frowning:

9

Ice it now. Switch mouse hands for the next while. You might have just damaged the tendon sheath if my guess of what muscle involved is correct. Yeah, I’d get that looked at.

10

Well don’t do that.

I’ll send you my bill.

11

There is absolutely no reason to worry about RA yet. Yeah it’s scary and can have odd symptoms but at the moment that is zebras not horses.

12

Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought so either - the symptoms are very specific, pain from my chest muscles travelling down my arms and a numbness and tingling on the back of my left hand - but jut throwing it out there.

13

Wow that reflux thing is crazy. Who’da thunk it?

P.S. R.A. is a bitch, but it can be managed. There are a bunch of new meds now.

14

Has your mouse height, chair height, chair arm height changed at all? After the cleaning folks come into our office at night and the chairs get moved around I don’t always get the same chair back. It feels fine at first until my wrist starts to hurt and I realize it’s not my same chair. Then I have to readjust everything to make it right again.

15

I thought i had carpal tunnel but it was tenosynovitis.
https://www.emoryhealthcare.org/orthopedics/dequervains-tenosynovitis.html

16

I’m not a doctor so can’t diagnose anything.

However, I would strongly recommend you get a mouse pad with a gel wrist rest. I’m on the computer & use a mouse a lot, and this really helps with my mouse hand. Note the gel wrist rest is both firm & flexible, so it doesn’t feel like you’re putting your wrist on a hard piece of plastic. At the same time, it provides needed support.

It’s tough to find this in retail stores. Here’s a link with more info. And, no, I don’t work for this company. I’m recommending this because it has helped me immeasurably. You can also get this on Amazon.

17

Hopefully not cuntal tarpal,that’s an itch you can’t scratch, don’t need nsaids, get some Aspercreme with Lidocaine, greatest otc yet for joint pain.

18

Yep, thinking Tendinitis here, too… Keep it wrapped in an ace bandage or splint for about 10 or 12 hours. Do let us know what the Doc says, Mama Z!

19

Years ago I developed some kind of mousing/computer overuse pain in my right wrist. I never bothered to get it diagnosed. It forced my to use my left hand, but I kept the button configuration righty. I’ve been doing this probably for a decade now - left hand, righty buttons. For whatever reason I can work all day like that with no trouble whatsoever. Maybe it has something to do with how my left hand lays over the mouse.

I play guitar in my spare time. Every once in a while I’ll overdo something - too much stretching for chords, strumming in a new way, and I think I’ll have permanently damaged something it hurts so bad. I just stay off it and work my way back slowly over the course of a month or so and I’m back to normal.

I’m about to turn 56 and more often I get these weird joint afflictions that come and go. I had been walking 4-5 miles a few days a week and In January I had to curtail my walking because my left hip suddenly became painful to the point where I had to sit down a couple times and give it a rest. Then it got better after a few weeks and I’m doing my walks again. The pain started when it was bitterly cold, so maybe that had something to do with it. Last year it was my knee, which is fine now.

FWIW, best of luck.

20

Well, poop.

Went to the primary care doc Monday. She sent me for OT.

That was this morning. The OT, who has a lot of experience with hand issues, very quickly said she wanted to send me to a hand specialist, and one she knew well had clinic hours today. She literally walked down the hall to talk to him to see if he could fit me in.

Shredded one tendon. A bone spur did the deed and might injure others if not dealt with. Somewhat urgent.

So, guess what I’ll be doing Tuesday?

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