I have ganglion cysts on each of my wrists, in exactly the same spot on each. I know the exact cause of them is not known, but I attribute their existence to the way I type and rest my hands on the keyboard (coincidentally, they are right under the part of the hands/wrists where I rest them).
Anyway, they don’t really hurt and they don’t really bother me, but man, they sure are ugly. Are there any “home remedies” that might get rid of them?
You can see people on YouTube using books to get rid of them
I keep getting the second most common type of hand cyst, called “Giant Cell Tumor of the Tendon Sheath” I wish there was a home remedy for them.
You might want to consult with a medical doctor before applying remedies from folk medicine. IOW, do not whack the ganglion cyst with a heavy book because the internet advises you to.
It is indeed a traditional remedy but the fact that it is traditional does not mean that it is a good idea. Part of the efficacy of the folk medical cure was magical, from contact with the Holy Bible (the traditional book used for curative whacking). You might solve or alleviate the immediate problem, but you also might not, and you might in fact make it worse or cause other problems.
Dr. Drake, PhD in Folklore, not an MD.
While the OP is probably not in imminent danger of expiring from internet advice, let’s move this to IMHO from General Questions. Opinions are just that.
samclem MOderator
by the way, I don’t actually endorse this method, I just find it interesting.
Hi:
I had one on my left wrist…on the inside left-hand side, about an inch below where my palm starts.
Mine hurt and was definitely unsightly. I went to my orthopedist, and he put me under a light general anesthesia and removed it. My orders after the surgery were to take vicodin and play video games 
Pain was minimal. The scar is so thin no one would notice.
I have a few on my lower legs, but those can just stay.
BTW, the one on my wrist never returned. It was from playing guitar.
**Don’t whack them with a book **they often sit on nerve bundles in your wrist that can be damaged permanently. An orthopedist can take care of them quickly and safely.
As I understand it, this is why ganglion cysts are sometimes referred to as “Bible bumps”.
I had one about 15 years ago. It went away on its own after a few months.
My daughter had one when she was in Namibia. Once she came home and cut down drastically on her texting, it went away.
I thought the folk remedy was based on using a Bible, you know, because of its magical powers.
My mum tells the story of being taken to the doctor with one of these when she was a kid. When he grabbed the large medical textbook, she thought he was going to look up the cure.
Thwack!
Glaswegian doctors, godless bastards.
I had one just below my wrist on the front of my hand. My mom told me to whack it with a book, but I was afraid to. But one day while I was hanging a towel on a towel rack, I banged my hand on the tile wall, right on the cyst. It hurt, but that got rid of the cyst. Those things are weird.
i have NEVER heard of whacking something like that with a book! :eek: :eek:
not one of my surgeons ever suggested such a thing. i’ve had to have three of the little bastards taken out of my right hand over the years - i happen to be left-handed, so what’s THAT about? you’d figure the dominant hand would be the one with the trouble…
and, of course it being me, they all had to be difficult extractions. they’d gotten down into the tendons of my second and third joint on my ring finger and at the base of my thumb.
i hope that’s the last of them. they’re a royal pain first because of the post-surgery pain, and secondly because you have absolutely no use of that hand for weeks afterward.
I have one at the outside bottom of my right thumb, and the thought of smacking it with a bible makes me cringe. If I just bump it up against something, it’s very painful – deliberately trying to smash it would probably make me pass out.
From what I’ve heard, it wasn’t the “magical powers” but rather the Bible was the biggest, heaviest book most people owned (in many cases the only book they owned).
I had one several years back. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my wrist, looking down and noticing it, then it was basically painless for a few weeks and one day it just went away on its own.
False dichotomy. It was the weight of the book, aided by the magical powers of the book. (The bible was also used to cure nosebleeds and burns.) You can take one without the other if you’re talking about efficacy from a biomedical perspective, but if you’re talking about the traditional practice, they go together. Your explanation sounds like a latter-day rationalization designed to justify the folk medical practice as one that “really worked.”
I had one at the base of my ring finger. I took a thin needle and punctured it. Took a few tries, the bugger kept sliding to the side, but I finally got it. That was years ago, it never came back.
I had one removed in college. My wrist was quite immobile for quite some time. It returned several years later. A friend and I were quite drunk and we did the book thing. The cyst went away, never to return and I was left with the tiniest of bruises and no pain. Admittedly, if his aim had been off by an iota, my wrist would’ve been broken, no question.
Huh, I never heard of that. I’d always heard you used Gray’s Anatomy.