Steriod injection 4 week ago
Hi there
New to forum and from Yorkshire
I've had CTS since October 2013 with the constant pins n needles tingly feeling, I've had the nerve tests done blood tests and even a splint fitted.. My GP said as long as I'm not wearing it all day and night I'm ok I've just to do what's comfy for me and relieves the symptoms.. I can't seem to wear the splint on a night and if I don't use it over the duration of the day it severely affects my work.. I've had to change my mouse settings to left handed one which has taken some getting used to as I'm right handed.
I had the Steriod injection 4 week ago and the pain and tingly sensations have returned at full force! The GP who did the injection told me NOT to wear the splint through day and definitely not after having the injection.. I think for the last 4 week I've done well bit I had to have it on today just to get me to home time.
He also told me I had to wait 6 week for the full benefit but I don't think I can.. Should I go back to my GP or wait? I'm fed up of not sleeping and being grumpy. It feels like the pain is going up my forearm making my whole arm feeling heavy with a full ache.
I just don't know what to do.
If you can get hold of a copy of your nerve conduction results it would be easier to advise as quite a lot depends on how much damage there is to the nerve physiologically and you can't really work that out from the symptoms.
There are no hard and fast rules on splint usage, which is why you have had conflicting advice from different GPs. In reality the best thing to do is experiment and see what works for you, though the majority of patients find that just using them at night helps with the sleep disturbance and that they get in the way during the daytime. There is no good evidence that 24/7 use is any better than intermittent. If your current ones are falling apart then they are easily bought online and there are fitting instructions here on the site, just buy some the same size as your current ones.
Regarding the steroid injection I'm not sure what poattern of response you are describing. Do you mean that the symptoms improved after injection and then returned after 4 weeks? It would also be useful to know what steroid and dose was used - some GPs inject homoeopathic doses of steroid and there is now evidence that higher doses are more effective. The usual pattern of response to injection is that symptoms improve dramatically within 48 hours ut a few patients do seem to show a later response, up to about 6 weeks so it can be worth waiting 6 weeks if it is not apparently responding at first. However improvement, followed by relapse, followed by further improvement at 6 weeks is not a pattern that I recognise.
I'm sorry about the delays in getting treated. The NHS can do better than this and the treatment arrangements outined here on carpal-tunnel.net are easy for other areas to copy. JB
Ps.. It took 2 month to get a splint fitted which is now slowly unstitching itself and 3 month to get a nerve conduction test then another 6 week just to get the test results even though was told by te hospital would be 2 week.. And 4 week to get an appointment for the injection.