2023, Family, Health, Medicine, Uncategorized

Carpal Trouble

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Husband is a sort of left-handed person who does everything he learned before the age of 5 with his left hand. Everything he learned thereafter he does with his right hand. He needs both his hands to function. He switches hands often. Although he writes left-handed, he is right-eye dominant.

He has spent decades typing/ keyboarding multitudes of psychological evaluations, and is a keyboard slammer, particularly with his right hand. It is no surprise that he has carpal tunnel issues in his right hand. It didn’t help that he fell on the ice this winter while walking the dog and sprained his right hand.

He is scheduled for carpal tunnel surgery June 30th. He is quite nervous as he has never had surgery before. I wish I could be more sympathetic. My first surgery, for an umbilical hernia, was at age 9 months, with several surgeries since. I just hope his fingers are no longer numb and he can button his own cuff buttons.

Have you or anyone you know had carpal tunnel surgery? Did it help? What are your surgical experiences?

40 thoughts on “Carpal Trouble”

  1. Carpal tunnel surgery helped a friend of mine. She continues to wear a wrist brace. Several surgeries. The first was an unnecessary tonsillectomy. My younger sister got tonsillitis. The Air Force doctor said, quoting my mother, “Well, we might as well do all three kids.”
    The experience reminds me of the Bill Cosby routine, Ice Cream.
    The worst surgery was a knee infection I received while working on an elevator cab floor at a hospital in Troy, Ohio. The bacteria got into me through a hole in my work pants and a tiny scratch. The bug blew up my leg overnight so I drove back to Columbus that next morning. An immediate care doctor referred me to a nearby orthopedic surgeon. Now wearing shorts, I limped to an exam room and saw someone in the stereotypical white coat looking at me from way down the hall. A few minutes later, the Coat Lady came in, gave me a quick once-over and said, “Go home and grab some stuff. Have someone drive you to Grant hospital. I’ll meet you there.” A week later, I was finally back home but hooked up with a contraption for antibiotics and a suction machine for the open incision (sutures would not work). Four months later, I was back to light duty work. Six months later, my experience was included in a Carpenter’s Union safety training film. Always treat ANY cuts or scratches with antibiotics immediately. And never wear holey jeans.

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      1. Good idea. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked Habitat For Humanity. I’m guessing they have updated their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) standards.

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  2. I had the (possibly unnecessary) tonsilectomy at age 4, and also remember the ice cream. And then cataracts removed from right eye a few years ago – left one will be due soon, I imagine.
    Talk about hitting both ends of the life cycle…

    I think my former neighbor had carpal tunnel surgery, but we had that falling out and I don’t know the long term results.

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  3. Son had his tonsils out when he was 20, and the liquid ibuprofen sent him into kidney failure. That cleared up, but he can’t ever take ibuprofen again.

    I had my gallbladder out when I was 22. They tried to take my appendix at the same time, but I am too long waisted and the surgeon couldn’t reach it.

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I have had lots of surgery, most of it related to breast cancer (I am now a long term 33 year survivor). Obviously the surgery and chemo were life-saving procedures. This all started with a biopsy, of course. As I came out of the anesthesia things got weird. I did the usual wake up/fall back asleep routine. Then the surgeon, a guy with notoriously poor bedside skills, was pulling on my big toe and said, “Jacque, you have cancer.” Then he walked out.

    When I woke up again, my minister was there. “ i looked at her and asked, “did he say I have cancer?”

    She said, “Yes.”

    Really?” I said.

    At this late date it all runs like a bad movie, but it was real. What Dr. pulls on your big toe?

    Phoebe is ripping up the pea patch this morning. I need to get dressed and walk her before she takes down the entire house.

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  5. T & A (tonsils/adenoids) at age 5, placement and later removal of hardware for femur (hip) fracture (both surgeries done via three small incisions), bilateral blepharoplasty (removal of excess skin from both upper eyelids), and cataract surgery coming up later this summer. With the hardware removal, I think they gave me a bit too much anesthesia. My BP got low enough that they had to give me some IV fluids in recovery and it took a long time to fully wake up.

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  7. I may have told this here before.
    I was having a fairly minor procedure—a bit of errant bone that needed to be removed from my big toe. For the procedure I was awake, with local anesthetic and an anesthesiologist up by my head monitoring my vitals. Most of my body was draped with a sort of rubber cover with a hole through which my big toe emerged. My head was screened by a panel that let me see the anesthesiologist but not the surgeon and all the surgeon could see of me was my big toe. As he was chiseling away at my bone spur, the surgeon chatted away, asking if I was going somewhere for lunch after the surgery. It tickled my funny bone to realize that he was holding this conversation with my big toe.

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    1. I’ve had some fun conversations like that. The back surgery was June 30. For the residents and fellows, June 30 is their last day of employment if they’re graduating. I asked who was in a hurry to leave or who was new, but none were at in that situation.

      I got a gold spec inserted into my back the day before the surgery. I was sedated, but no unconscious. They were really hammering away at that spec. I reminded them I was awake. He said I had hard bones, and as long as I couldn’t feel it… and he hammered some more. It was weird.

      And one Anestheologist, was talking and asking me questions, then asked if I was ever gonna go to sleep. Well, you’re the one asking me questions! 🙂

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  9. HI-
    Well. Sign me up for one of everything!
    Carpel Tunnel – yeah, if husband get the ‘ultrasound guided’, (Mine was called ‘Sonix’) it’s one, 1/4″ incision, one stitch / wrist, and back to normal in a day or two. I had mine in 2017, and it was AWESOME. No issues, no numb fingers again. At the time, it was so new, it had to be full OR and full anesthesia, ‘just in case’. I’m sure it’s out patient now and even better.

    Multiples surgeries on my leg back in 1978 and ’79.
    (Kelly had back surgery in 1978. I like to imagine we crossed paths in the ward somewhere…)
    Then the shoulder, back, and knee in 2022.

    I’m very fortunate we are part of Mayo, and everyone there has been so great to work with!

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  10. CT 6-8 years ago. Complete failure. Surgeon thought it might be on top of a large Dupitryens lump right in the way. Spelled that wrong. My dry eyes are a mess in all this smoke so I don’t bother with details.
    Clyde

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  11. Almost forgot – I did have surgery to release Dupuytren’s contracture in my left pinky – not a complete success but the finger is much straighter.

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    1. Talk about dumb jokes-
      When I had my vasectomy, they gave me valium or something like that that made me loopy. The surgeon performing the procedure was unusually short. Under the influence, I proceeded to make short jokes.
      Probably not the wisest move under the circumstances…

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    2. My dad would start singing as he came out of anesthesia: “There’s a Freckle on her butt” and “The Cow Kicked Nellie in the Belly in the Barn” . I did not make that up.

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  13. i got carpel tunnel done a couple time
    first time was great
    lasted about a year then i cut the end of my finger off with a butcher knife and it went dead carpel tunnel again then good again not perfect but much improved
    hand is out of commission for a while but it comes back pretty quickly not too much pain

    if chris is right eye dominant he is right handed

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    1. Sorry, tim, that’s not accurate. There are easy tests that you can do yourself to test which eye is dominant. One is this: Hold your arms stretched out in front of you, bring your hand together and form a triangle with your thumbs meeting at the bottom and your forefingers touching at the top. With both eyes open, center an object so that it is within that triangle. Now close your eyes, and without moving your hands forming that triangle. Now, open only one eye. Let’s say you have opened the right eye and the item within that triangle is still centered in the triangle your right eye is dominant. Although there is a strong correlation between dominant eye and handedness, it doesn’t always hold true. I’m left eye dominant, at least at this stage of my life (and that may be affected by a detached retina) and I’m very right handed.

      Here what research on the subject has found: “Eye dominance and handedness (being right-handed or left-handed) are not directly related. But these traits are significantly associated. Population studies show that about 90% of people are right-handed and about 67% are right-eye dominant.

      Research has shown that the odds of a person who is right-handed being right-eye dominant are high. In fact, odds are approximately 2.5 times greater than the odds of that person being left-eye dominant.

      But it is impossible to accurately predict eye dominance based on handedness alone.”

      The source of the above quote is Gary Heiting, OD from an article in All About Vision.

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      1. that’s not how i heard it but i didn’t talk to gary
        my guy was a shrink and said a huge percentage of his people were not aware of the dominance and that lefties living righty identities without being aware were often screwed up

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  14. I also had the tonsils out, but as an adult. It was after a few years of trying to figure out why I was getting so many colds and so much strep. I had a terrible time with this tonsillectomy, absolutely terrible, including having to go in for a second emergency surgery four days later. Anyway, the kicker of this is that less than a month after this horrible terrible experience I got another cold and lost my voice again. I kind of lost my temper with my doctor and that’s when she finally said “well maybe we should have you tested for allergies.” Buh dum dum.

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  15. Several friends who had carpal tunnel surgery — all went well. One friend who completely over does it all of the time ended up having to have another surgery a couple of years later.

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  16. I just tallied up my surgeries, starting at age four with a removal of tonsils and adenoids and ending with the cataract surgeries in 2021, and the total is ten. Three of them was related to my right knee, three of them to my reproductive organs, one of which was due to cancer. So far so good, though I may have to have my right eye’s detached retina repaired; another knee replacement on the other knee may be in the offing, too. I’m hoping to avoid both; we shall see.

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  17. I have a long surgical history. If my memory serves, eight required general anesthesia, four or five were done with sedation, and a number of others with local anesthsia. I really hate it when I have to fill out those forms at a medical office where you’re supposed to detail your surgical history – I’ve forgotten a lot of it.

    I would rather avoid general anasthesia if at all possible. I’f I’m under for very long, I’ll throw up afterwards.

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    1. My second surgery, (I forgot to include the first one in the count above. That surgery, repairing my femur which was broken in two places when I was three, I have no recollection of, though I remember the long stay in the hospital.) the removal of my tonsils and adenoids, was done using ether as the anesthesia. I recall it vividly, partly because I came to in the middle of the operation and they quick smacked the mask dispensing ether back onto my face. I threw up for hours afterwards, but I loved the ice cream.

      The remaining surgeries all involved various kinds of general anesthesia (except for the removal of the mole and the cataract surgeries), and I must say, they have gotten so much better at it over the years. Recovery is much faster, and the pain relief longer lasting.

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    2. After my shoulder surgery last February, I was sick to my stomach. Knowing that, they did something different for the other surgeries and recovery was much easier with no vomiting. That’s always a win win!

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