1.5 Years Post Op

Some people have asked if I think the surgery was worth it. The short answer is yes.

I feel like I have almost full range of motion, (maybe 90-95%?). You can judge for yourself in the pictures below. Given that my Dr. told me I might only regain 70% ROM, I am pleased with the results. In terms of strength, it is a fair amount weaker now than it was before the injury, and gets tired pretty quickly if I try to do any heavy lifting. But it is considerably stronger than it was after the injury, before the surgery (I could not pick up a gallon of milk). Had I been better about continuing my exercises and weights with it in the 4 months and onwards time period, it would probably be stronger. And even if I worked with it now it would probably get stronger still. He did say that the younger you are, and the better you are about your exercises, the better results you will see.

Overall I am pleased with the results so far (not sure if Arthritis might be more likely in the future than if I had never injured it?). Yes it was somewhat expensive, pretty painful for a few weeks after surgery, and an inconvenience for a few months after surgery. But by about 8 months post op I was able to do pretty much anything that I had before the injury, and have not had any real lingering issues. Keep in mind though that if you play an instrument or competitive sports that not having complete ROM or strength might be a bigger deal.

According to my Dr., if I did not have the surgery, then I would have re-injured it within a year, which would probably then have required open surgery instead of arthroscopic, which would leave a bigger scar and lengthen the recovery process. Of course you have to keep in mind that this was coming from a surgeon! The other option was to cast it for 2 months and see if it healed on it's own (which he claimed would more likely cause Arthritis down the road than surgery). And if it didn't heal on it's own, then they still would have had to do surgery, and once again it likely would have been open as opposed to arthroscopic. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who went this route though.

So take a look, and see if you can even tell which wrist it was (hint... see older posts?)!

Physical Therapy

I can't believe it's already been over a year since I had the pins out! Sorry for not updating sooner and not seeing your comments earlier. Hopefully this will still be helpful. For those of you that have since had the surgery, how are you doing?

The week after I had the pins out, I started PT. I went once a week for about 6 weeks. Overall it was helpful. However, there was a lot of it you can just do on your own. I started on my own with a small number of reps and no weight, just passively stretching it (don't force it with your other hand!) but doing it frequently. Basically as often as I thought about it (almost once an hour!). The more the better. Then I worked up to about 3 sets of 15 reps, in each of the 4 directions you can move your wrist, plus wrist circles, starting with 1 lb, 2lb, and finally a 3lb weight (after 6 weeks). I started with a small range of motion, not pushing it with the weights to the maximum ROM that I could, and again gradually increasing ROM with the weights. (Canned goods, or a bottle of water work well for the 1lbs if you don't have a weight). The PT said not to do isolated wrist exercises with more than 3 lbs and not to move up to the next weight size until I could do all 3 sets of 15 without struggling or being sore the next day. I also had some silly putty type clay that I carried around with me and would occasionally squeeze for 10-15 min. to work on increasing grip strength. At PT and on my own, I would also use lotion and massage the areas around the incisions to help scar tissue break down. One thing that I think was very helpful at PT that I could not have done on my own was this machine they had. I'm not sure what it's called, but they had me stick my arm inside it for about 15 minutes, and it was heated and had a bunch of sawdust inside that would spin around while I did my stretching exercises inside. Sort of like a combo of heat therapy and massage.

About 8 weeks after getting the pins out I went back to my Dr. for a checkup and he cleared me, with "full recovery"! He said I could pretty much do whatever I wanted, but that I shouldn't push it initially and to just trust myself and how it felt to decide if I should or should not do something. He might have advised against this, but I was feeling pretty good and about 3-4 months after getting the pins out, so I went and played 18 holes of golf, and waterskied (2 separate weekends). Waterskiing did not hurt, but I could tell my wrist was still very weak, so I mainly used my other hand. Looking back, 18 holes of golf was not a good idea. It swelled up pretty good the next day, but more on the left and right sides of my wrist due to lack of strength and pushing my ROM, not by where the ligament tear/repair had been.