After a few months of really odd wrist pain, I found a knot in my left hand.
My doctor thought it might be a ganglion cyst, so he sent me to an orthopedic surgeon. The X-rays didn’t show anything, which is apparently not unusual for a cyst.
The orthopedic surgeon didn’t think it was a cyst; the knot is in the wrong place for that. (It’s next to the knuckle; he said he’s never seen a cyst there in the 20 years he’s been practicing.) He sent me for an MRI of my hand, which showed… nothing. No mass, no growth, no nothing. Hm. The plot thickens.
The knot is still there, and he’s thinking maybe bone spur that is compressing a nerve and that wouldn’t show up on an MRI, either, depending on how the bone spur is lined up.
Tomorrow, I’m going in for surgery. It’s not that big a deal as these things go. I get a nice shot of Versed and a nerve block, so there will be no general anesthesia, barring something significant happening. One little incision, a couple days’ of soreness, and that’s it.
I’m still pretty nervous, though. I’m not afraid of hospitals or needles, but this is a Big Unknown and the “C” word is going through my mind, even though the surgeon doesn’t think it’s cancerous. And I’d like to keep the use of my left hand.
Good wishes, prayers (if you’re of that inclination) and virtual flowers will be accepted and appreciated.
Good luck. A bit of an anecdote: my mom gets these (and ganglions) and they’re completely harmless, if painful. No one knows what they are, though. You’re not the only one.
Well, it’s over. The surgery took less than an hour, and aside from some pain in my left hand, I feel pretty good.
The surgeon said the growth wasn’t a bone spur at all, but a thickening of the synovial capsule that cushions the joint. So the excess came off, since it was encroaching the nerve.
In moving joints, there is a capsule called the synovium that cushions the joint. The synovium in the third finger of my left hand had thickened, and was pressing on the nerve, which caused a lot of pain.
My hand hurts worse now, but it’ll be OK once it heals.
I just caught this thread, so my wishes are a bit late. But it sounds like things went as well as could be expected, and here’s hoping the pain will lessen with time. Surgery is really really scary! Take good care, OK?
