Surgery scheduled... Advice?
I have had symptoms of CTS in both wrists for over a year now. I started seeing an Orthopedic surgeon mid last year to see if we could stop it from getting worse. He said that we could try with night splints to see what happened. Well, it didn't help.
In September, 2012, I got my first injections and they helped for about a month, after the first couple of days being VERY uncomfortable. I went back in January, 2013 and had more injections. This time they only lasted about two weeks.
I still wear those sexy splints at night!
I called back about a month ago and they decided I need to have the nerve conduction done to find out how severe my problem is. I had that done last Wednesday and I have moderate CTS in both wrists. I went back for my follow up today and have decided to go all in. I am going to have bilateral CTS open release surgery at the end of July. I KNOW this is going to be tough, but I figure it will be less recovery time doing it this way. I am certain I would go insane if I was stuck in my house for a month!
Some background... I work 50 plus hours a week. I am an MIS Director for a franchise of Burger King and Popeye's. I do all the programming, POS and computer repair. Our department is 2 people strong for 55 locations. I stay really busy all of the time. I am married, with no children. I am very independent, love to cook and am VERY OCD about my house and car. I am in overall good health. I do have Hypothyroidism.
Any advice for after surgery or pre surgery would be very helpful! I already have plans to put my cooking skills to work before surgery and cook at least 2 weeks worth of meals and put them in the freezer to reheat for dinners.
Thanks in advance!
On the whole I would recommend operating on one side at a time. Sometimes the other side improves when you do the first one anyway, and you can carry on much more normal activities after surgery if you have one hand which is not stitched and bandaged. Post-operative care varies a lot from surgeon to surgeon and hopefully yours has given you some guidance on what to expect but our local policy is one that only has the operated hand completely out of action for 24-48 hours, our biggest restriction on daily activity generally being not being able to drive until 10-14 days after surgery. If getting back to work/driving very quickly is important then endoscopic (keyhole) surgery is a bit better for that but you have to find a surgeon who is experienced in the technique. Interestingly though, when time to return to work is used as an outcome measure for carpal tunnel surgery the biggest determinants of recovery time are personal motivation/psychological, social factors and the type of work involved - not the type of surgery. JB