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Carpal tunnel recovery blog (not)


chrisanthony1211
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Well I'm booked into have my left done on Tuesday which is eight weeks after I had my right one done. Whilst I played a gig 17 days after the surgery on my right hand it's still not 100% and still has some healing to be done, there is still a very slight numbness in my finger tips, if I have a day in the office on the computer it's very sore the next day, and the cold plays bloody hell with it.

Fortunately playing bass is absolutely fine 👍

Gonna do a bit of a carpal tunnel recovery blog (with photos) on here for anyone who finds themselves in a similar position and wants to see what it's all about, see you on Tuesday night, wish me luck!

 

Edited by chrisanthony1211
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To be honest my left hand doesn’t give me much problems at the moment so I’ve been in two minds whether or not to get it done, however I’ve not been particularly active since I had my right one done which may be the reason.  I just know that if I don’t get it done, come the the summer when I’m back in the gym, cutting the grass, hedges and tree that it will be back. My nerve conduction test had my left as being pretty bad so i shall get it done whilst I can (and it gets me Christmas off work!)

Edited by chrisanthony1211
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Well this could be a disappointing thread!

No surgery for me today, the surgeon said that because I have no current symptoms it would be wrong to operate at the moment and all he can do is make it worse. I have an open appointment for three months to go back if the symptoms do return, I shall come back on here if my symptoms do return and I get the chop.

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When you're in the gym etc, wear a weightlifting wrist brace. I wear one while I'm playing bass (on the right wrist that wasn't bad enough for surgery)and it keeps the symptoms away.

 

Prevention is better than cure.....

Edited by gjones
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I had both done together - my right was much worse than my left. The surgery cured the right completely - but the left has a couple of tender spots that weren't there before! I think your doctor was right - don't have the surgery unless you need it!!

Playing bass actually bends the wrists to releive the pressure, so I find that it actually helps with the numbness.

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would you mind if i ask what the symptoms are or are they different for each of you.

From a bass players point of view i'm curious as to what it is and how it manifests itself.

Is it painful ? 

Not that i have any probs but was curious as to how and why.

Dave

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My symptoms are numbness of the thumb, index and middle fingers as well as pins and needles.  Mines triggered by bending my hand back the way, which can be an issue on my bike depending on how I position my hands and the angle of my wrist. It can be triggered by closing the hand down on the wrist in other people, it varies from person to person.  My right hand I worse then my left. 

I'd imagine if it's triggered by closing the wrist it will have a bigger impact when playing bass, more so on the fretting hand.

I keep my plucking wrist pretty straight so I don't tend to get bothered by it. 

The worst bit about it for me is the pins and needles can wake me during the night. I have a wrist strap but don't often remember to put it on a bed time. My own fault. 

 

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Well the right one was done 8 weeks ago and is going well, if that left one can stay the way it is then all should be good, time will tell..

 

my symptoms were mostly at night, 02:00 in the morning id wake up in quite a lot of pain, during the day I would have very little, occasionally I may get some numbness when driving but it was mostly at night.

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I think it’s worth saying that I didn’t find the procedure or the recovery particularly traumatic, everyone is different but the whole process was pretty straight forward for me. The initial local anaesthetic into the wrist is not pleasant, but it’s over pretty quickly and the surgery was done and dusted in half an hour. The best recovery is to get playing bass ASAP 🙂

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2 hours ago, chrisanthony1211 said:

I think it’s worth saying that I didn’t find the procedure or the recovery particularly traumatic, everyone is different but the whole process was pretty straight forward for me. The initial local anaesthetic into the wrist is not pleasant, but it’s over pretty quickly and the surgery was done and dusted in half an hour. The best recovery is to get playing bass ASAP 🙂

My wife has had both of hers done and also said that the loical anaesthetic was by far the worse part. For the second one she doped herself up with standard issue pain killers (paracetemol/Coedine etc) before hand and said that that helped quite a bit. Once the local jab was done no pain at all though.

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20 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

would you mind if i ask what the symptoms are or are they different for each of you.

From a bass players point of view i'm curious as to what it is and how it manifests itself.

Is it painful ? 

Not that i have any probs but was curious as to how and why.

Dave

Here is an in dept analysis with comments, from "Talkbass" :

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/carpal-tunnel-syndrome-cts-info.922789/

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