Not asking for medical advice–I’ve seen my doctor already and will schedule further medical consultaton.
I have a flexor tendon ganglion cyst at the juncture of my palm and a finger on my dominant hand. It is not uncomfortable and it’s not giving me any trouble thus far. My doctor has suggested that I see a hand surgeon and intimates that the options are a cortisone shot to attempt to delay surgery, or just scheduling surgery. I should say that I am very wary of intrusive interventions when alternatives have not been proposed or tried.
My mother and several others have scoffed at the two options given above, stating that they have had similar cysts in this location that have resolved on their own, or that have never resulted in a “trigger finger” condition with loss of function.
I would be interested to hear your experiences and opinions, bearing in mind as I said above that I will make my decisions in conjunction with my doctor.
I had a ganglion cyst. It wasn’t really bothering me so I never bothered to get it treated. They used to call them bible whackers because the preferred treatment in the old days was to just whack the little bugger with a big heavy book, and the big heavy book that most people were likely to have around was the bible. I ended up accidentally giving myself this sort of treatment when I banged my hand on something and somehow managed to accidentally hit it almost exactly on the cyst. After being accidentally whacked, the cyst went away on its own.
I am not a doctor or anything even close to that, but I’m pretty sure that whacking them is no longer the preferred treatment.
I was under the impression that they could drain the cyst with a needle, after which the cyst might return or it might not. I’ll leave it to one of our medical dopers to comment on whether or not that’s really an option.
As late as 1989, I was whacking them for treatment as Navy Corpsman. Cortisone injections were the second choice, or used for patients who didn’t consent to “forcible reduction by striking”. Hand surgery was a last-ditch alternative. Had good results, and no results. Never had anything bad happen from the “treatment”.
I always thought it worked better if the patient (victim) didn’t know what was coming. Thus the phrase “forcible reduction by striking”. It wasn’t a popular treatment, to say the least, but it often worked.
I had one on the inside of my wrist; the doc told me to wear a simple wrist support with a penny inside pressing on the cyst. It eventually went away on its own and hasn’t recurred in years.
I had one in the same place as yours - right at the juncture of finger & palm. It didn’t bother me so I ignored it and one day noticed it disappeared on it’s own. That was about 25 years ago with no recurrance. I’d hesitate to let anyone put a knife near my finger tendons unless I had to. What if they sneeze at the wrong time?
I had them in my teenage years and they were nothing more than uncomfortable lumps - they didn’t happen to restrict movement, but I whacked them with a stick one day and they disappeared almost straight away.
Both of my kids had them on both hands to the extent that their fingers would lock and it was interfering with their handwriting; they both in turn underwent surgery at about age 5 and it was a complete success.
My sister had one when she was a teenager, and had it removed because she played the flute and it was bothering her. But the advice at the time was that unless you had a special reason to remove it, you could just leave it alone. I had something similar around my wrist at one time, and it went away by itself.
I had one on my wrist a few years ago. It was extremely painful and at times I couldn’t even move my hand. I tried whacking it with a heavy book but it was still there. The doctor removed fluid from it with a needle several times but it just kept getting bigger. Finally I had it surgically removed and it hasn’t been an issue since. I don’t even have a scar.