Pain is back??!!??!!
So i'm 20 yrs old (young to have this to begin with) and am getting a little worried . I was Diagnosed with CTS last year Oct and had my surgery in Dec after a failed attempt at doing a steroid injection (reacted adversely to it) and many MANY painkillers that just weren't doing anything. I had my wrist in a splint for the time between initial diagnoses and surgery which helped a little bit and i believe with time i could of reverted back to normal with just the splint but i didn't have that much time and i'd already left it too late to have it go back completely to normal just on it's own anyway. I had, had minor symptoms pressing on about a year before my diagnoses but with being a hairdresser i just thought it was muscle fatigue and a slight bit of RSI. So i put it off and put it off until it got to the point where i could barely move my wrists without being in agony and having "shooting electric shocks" run up and down my arms. i lost strength in both my arms and could no longer hold a blow-waver or shampoo my clients or cut and colour, so basically i couldn't do my job at all. it drained all my energy and i couldn't drive either. i started to become depressed. i finally went to my GP, was diagnosed, had my injection, got put in a splint and put on a waiting list and my expected surgeons consultation date was on the 10/2/2015. Thankfully when i rang them to confirm my appointment i was able to be squeezed in a LOT earlier and it was all done and dusted by the first week of Dec. i was amazed with the initial results. i had minimal swelling full mobility and no pain (other than the obvious pain through the incisions). unfortunately about a month ago i started to get really bad infections along the length of my scar on my right hand that were filled with green pus. they're still there and rather sore and itchy but bearable and seem to be going away on their own slowly. i started a new job at the beginning of last month so 8-ish weeks from my surgery date and i was fine, no problems. Until i woke up the night before last in AGONY. my left forearm and hand were cramped and felt tight and hot, my hand had pins and needles and i couldn't get back to sleep. since then i have had the same feelings in my left wrist/forearm as i did before my surgery. It's sore to touch and to use. I'm still using both my arms as i normally would, I'm in a less repetitive and less strenuous job and working part-time as opposed to full-time now and driving a LOT less than i was but i still have to work and can't afford to take time off of work and damn sure don't won't to go back in for more surgery this soon. i was really just hoping that someone would tell me that this is normal and they've experienced the same thing before i start freaking out. i need to see my doctor anyway so i'll be bringing it up with her if it persists i just hope that its not the fact that the surgery failed or something worse. sorry about the long post i thought it would be best to have a bit of a back story to it. But has anyone else had this?
Thanks for your reply JB,
I live in Hamilton NZ, I didn't have any nerve conduction studies done only my surgeon pushing on certain parts through my arm and hand etc and doing the whole : hold this position, clench your fists, push against my hand and so on. My GP administered a cortisone injection in my right forearm and as soon as he started pushing the syringe I instantly had what I would describe as an "electric shock" run from elbow to wrist and my whole forearm, wrist and hand swelled up the complexion in said areas went blotchy and a purple tinge came to my skin, it felt hot not only to myself but to touch as well and had a pins and needles feeling throughout my whole arm and my hand started throbbing. I became dizzy and disorientated and faint. After about fifteen minutes I started to come right other than the pain. Before the injection my symptoms were prominent in my right hand and almost non-existent in my left hand. After the injection I could barely move my wrist and the pain and the symptoms became a whole lot worse than before. He then put me in a splint until I heard back from my surgeon. In the time that I was in the splint I was barely using my right hand and was compensating by only using my left hand for things I wouldn't normally (I'm right handed) because of this my left wrist started to deteriate to the point that when I saw my surgeon two months later I needed to have a bilateral surgery rather than the initial plan of just doing the right wrist (which was quite frustrating for me). I was told after my surgery to use my hands as per normal which I did to an extent I didn't push myself and if I started to feel pain I stopped whatever I was doing and rested my hands. I followed post-op care to the letter and took extreme care of my incisions. So I'm unsure as to why I'm having so many complications so soon afterwards , I'm aware it's not a permanant fix surgery but I didn't expect to be reverting back so soon.
Thanks for the extended story - very interesting. One possible explanation for the injection story might be that the injection was placed directly into the nerve. That would produce the instantaneous shock like sensation but the swelling and colour change is a bit harder to explain. I presume that was now some time ago so that very detailed information like the exact injection site is difficult to be sure of. Genuine 'allergic' reactions to steroid injections are extremely rare.
The lack of pre-operative nerve conduction studies is a bit of a nuisance but it would still be worth getting some done now if the current episode of symptoms continues, and ultrasound imaging of the area can also be very helpful in trying to work out what is wrong in this situation. Surgery does turn out to be a permanent fix in the majority of patients (60-90% depending on which report you read and just how rigorous your definition of 'fix' is) so your current symptoms are worthy of investigation and should clearly not be ignored as just part of the range of expected outcomes. JB
The sudden onset of severe symptoms 8 weeks after surgery is defintely not 'normal' in the sense that it is something you expect in lots of patients. Indeed the above storu is unusual in many respects. As usual I have to ask, were any nerve conduction studies done before surgery to tell us how much physiological distrubance there was, and in this case I think it would lso be interesting to know more about the 'failed' injection - what did they try to inject and what was the reaction. Post-operative infection starting after an interval post-surgery is also a bit odd, as is bilateral surgery at the same time if that is what they did. You definitely need to take this up with your doctors again - unless it miraculously goes away before you get a chance of course. JB