The story of my wrists

On this page I will provide a detailed explanation of my wrist’s situation. To do this in an easy-to-understand manner I will be combining my experiences with some images, sourced from the Wikipedia article Carpal Bones, along with my understanding of the information that I was provided by the NHS surgeons.

I will do my best to be brief and to the point, but since this issue has been plaguing me for most of my life it will still take some time. So, grab a drink and some patient and let's get into the nitty gritty.

I am aware that this is a long read. So, to respect your time you jump to any section you want using the quick links below.

Circumstances

During my high school years there was this trend in my class of playing "no peak". This involved pilling bodies on each other, like sheets of paper, and seeing how tall the body tower can get before it falls. This was similar with Jenga game to a certain degree.

This was mostly done by boys. For it to happen a person would need to be caught off guard and end up in some sort of lying position, willingly or otherwise. As soon as the "ground floor" would be set each consecutive person would leap on, forming the next level of the tower, until it would either become unstable and collapse or no one else would be willing to participate.

There are two obvious points:

1. the person that would end up at the bottom would very rarely volunteer.

2. the taller the tower the more weight and pressure on the lower levels, especially on the person at the bottom.

I grew up in the 2000's when this kind of thing was considered normal, even if it was massively stupid and irresponsible.

Getting injured

In that environment I ended up falling. I can't remember what triggered the fall, but I know that I tried to cushion it by raising my hands. However, I was not fast enough before the first 80kg impact landed on my back. This meant that my hands were caught halfway raised when the heavy impact landed on me triggering a massive surge of pain in both of my wrists. Immediately after, another 80kg impact on my back followed.

I guess I can say that I got lucky that there was no one else around willing to join, like it happened in the past. Generally, the tower could end up having around 6 or more levels, so having only 2 was ... a saving grace, I guess.

Despite the massive initial pain that I felt it subsided quickly after everyone got off.

Unbeknownst to me that was the moment when a tendon snapped on each of my wrists.

Defining physical pain levels

To be able to move forward in an easy-to-understand manner I need to set my pain tolerance scale so that you can get a better understanding of what will follow.

I am creating this context because, unfortunately, I am very familiar with pain due to other ... experiences that I have had in my life. 

• level 0 = means no pain whatsoever.

• level 10 = this is the worst pain imaginable. If you are resilient enough you might be able to stay conscious for a while but eventually you would pass out.

These examples are in chronological order, but do not represent an exhaustive list of these types of experiences. But they are indeed some of the worst physical pain experiences that I have felt in my life. In each case I had to assess the situation and decide what is the best course by myself.

• level 9 = Lower back disk hernia injured twice, in quick succession, when trying to pick up a fallen newspaper from the floor => debilitating lower back pain. Seriously considered to call the ambulance but I understood what was going on and I managed to get an emergency appointment at my chiropractor. I got lucky this has happened only once in my life.

• level 8 = Mechanical misalignment between my upper and lower parts of the leg => massive pain and inability to move until I realigned them myself, followed by a visit to the chiropractor as soon as possible. This has happen to both of my legs several times, and it is dependent on my leg position. As long as I am careful and mindful of my posture, I can avoid this.

• level 7 = The upper spine, the base of the neck, becoming misaligned with the rest of my back => Splitting headaches that no painkillers can alleviate. A visit to the chiropractor as soon as possible is the only solution. Luckily this tends to happen infrequently.

NOTE: I am very grateful and thankful for the NHS because it is there to help you in your worst moments. But that does not mean that they could be better organised, and their existing resources better assigned.

• level 9 to level 10 = Right side kidney stone blockage => debilitating pain. Had to call the ambulance. When the operator told me how long it would take and believing that the pain was caused by my appendix ready to burst, I got myself in a cab and went to the emergency room by myself. There, after waiting for about 2 hours, while the pain was wearing me down so much to the point of barely being able to stand, I was seen by someone at my own insistence. After quick testing the appendix concern was settled, and the diagnosis of kidney stone blockage was made. I was admitted, and for the following week I stayed in the hospital due to medical equipment complications which ended up impacting my life in the long run. A few months later it was finally sorted after more logistical and miscommunication issues from the NHS side. Now I take preventive actions so I can avoid the creation of these stones.

Symptoms

Now getting back to my wrists.

Since the day the tendons’ snapped things have gradually worsen. This has been predominant on my right side since I am right-handed.

It started off with no more than a weird clonking sensation that was felt when moving my hands up and down. It felt like the movement wasn't smooth and they were jumping over something. But no actual pain or any other symptoms.

Over the following years I started getting occasional pain when moving my hands. The worst was when the movement would be sudden followed by a very sharp pain spike which would decrease in intensity over the following minutes.

Since this was getting worse, and it wasn't my imagination as I initially believed, I started reaching out to doctors in Romania to try to figure out what had happened and see what I can do to improve my situation.

Unfortunately, none of those appointments bore any fruit. I ended up having to try to live with it as it was but, as time went by, I began realising that things are still worsening.

At this point I would have the following symptoms:

• sudden spikes of pain, even when standing still. The intensity level would vary between 5 and 8 on the pain scale.

• numbness and tingling.

• dropping things.

I knew that I can't continue like this, so I started reaching out for help to the NHS in 2019 after I realised the I am settling in the UK.

After reaching out to the NHS I was initially seen by a general practitioner who told me that I have Carpel Tunnel and I needed to get immediate surgery. The doctor kept on pushing this a bit too much without properly listening to me.

I didn't trust him since the condition he was diagnosing me with did not align with the symptoms that I was having. So, I choose to trust my gut and the experiences of all the previous misdiagnosis that I was given. I refused his solution and requested to see a hand specialist.

Finally in October 2019 I was seen by an NHS advanced musculoskeletal practitioner. He immediately realised that there is indeed something wrong with both of my wrists. He assessed my situation and, along with the MRI results he requested, correctly diagnosed me: Bilateral scapholunate ligament tears.

Simply put I had broken tendons. This condition allowed the loose bones to grind against anything near resulting in all the symptoms that I have been experiencing.

And since this has been happening for the last 17 years, I also received a bonus diagnosis of definite arthritis on my right wrist, and most likely for my left one as well. These last two would need to be confirmed with exploratory surgery.

When discussing why it was so difficult to correctly diagnose my condition, the hand specialist told me that ligaments and arthritis damage do not show up on Xray’s and MRIs. So, the only way to realise what is wrong would be if the extra space between the bones is noticed on the Xray's or via exploratory surgery. That is why a lot of the times this condition gets misdiagnosed.

Understanding the diagnosis

Possible solutions

Now getting back to it.

Overall, the solutions are focused on managing the condition and minimising the pain levels. There is no fix for this to make you good as new.

In all instances it would require external elements to be brought inside your body. Due to this reason, I have based the risks of long-term possible complications on the following idea:

"The fewer parts the fewer chances of something going wrong." This includes anything from structural issues for the said parts to human error.

That being said, there are 3 possible scenarios to my conditions.

Surgeries & timeframe expectations

All the surgeries I need got pushed back even further on the already existing waiting list due to the pandemic.

Overall, this is how things turned out so far:

• October 2019 = Both wrists diagnosed with Scapholunate ligament tears. The focus is placed on the right wrist due to its severe situation.

• November 2019 = Right wrist diagnosis confirmed via X-ray's & MRIs.

• July 2021 = Right wrist arthroscopy, exploratory surgery, to evaluate the arthritis damage due to the bone-on-bone friction over the last 17 years.

• January 2022 = Scenario 2 is performed on my right wrist. Scaphoidectomy (scaphoid excision) with midcarpal arthrodesis (midcarpal fusion).

• April 2022 = Left wrist diagnosis confirmed via X-ray's & MRIs.

• May 2024 = Left wrist attempted reconstruction surgery. Apparently successful.

• September 2024 = Despite best efforts, it was concluded that the reconstruction attempt has failed.

• Currently = waiting on surgery date for Scenario 2 to be attempted as a solution.

Despite the long periods of time, I have had to wait and still need to wait, to get this sorted I am happy for the fact that the NHS exists. Without the good doctors and good nurses that work there I do not think I would have been able to even attempt to fix anything. So, thank you!

Right wrist daily challenges as of March 2024

After the procedure took place, and my right wrist physically healed, this is what I noticed:

• occasional sudden spikes of pain even when not moving, between levels 3 to 5 on the pain scale. This is indeed an improvement.

• almost daily chronic pain and discomfort, between levels 1 and 2 on the pain scale. Again, clear improvement.

• recovered only 30% of my initial mobility, but the wrist is very stable, and I do not drop things because of it anymore. It is nice to be able to have a stable wrist.

Left wrist daily challenges as of March 2024

It is worsening because, for a time, it became the predominant hand and wrist, while the right side was recovering. Even now when I am mostly using the right hand again, I am noticing the same symptomatic arc that I went through before. And it is continuing to develop in the same manner.

This is the current condition of it:

• frequent spikes of pain even when not moving, with a slow increase in the pain scale levels regularly. At this point I think I am between 5 and 7.

• daily chronic pain and clonking whenever I use it, with a slow and steady increase in both pain levels and inability to use, which results in regularly dropping things.

Examples of daily strugles

These are some of the things that I am struggling with daily:

• very limited movement.

• regular discomfort.

• ocassional sporadic pain of varying intensities, even at rest.

• any kind of food mixing.

• carying anything above 500g with one hand.

Having to live with chronic wrist pain is a massive challenge in itself. Both your physical and mental resilience constantly gets tested. It makes you appreciate the goods days and makes you question life on the bad ones.

So many layers overlap daily: biomechanical, sensation-wise, mental, emotional.

And when you pile on other existing issues that I must deal with frequently ... it just makes things unbearable at times:

• lower and upper back pain and discomfort with regular chiropractor visits to increase my quality of life. This can be anywhere between 1 to 4 times per month.

• constant awareness of my leg positions to avoid the mechanical misalignments from happening.

• managing out-of-the-blue skin tingling and itchiness sensations due to both emotional and nervous system trauma.

• having to manage physical health to minimise the chances of recurring abdominal hernias.

• kidney stones maintenance to minimise the chances of formation to avoid blockages.

It is a lot to have to deal with while trying to make your life worth living, actively wanting to see that you are moving forward and making progress with your goals.

But I am still trying.