u/Turbulent-Plate9378

Im feeling extremely conflicted, the specialist basically was on the fence about me having the surgery. He outlined the potential risks such as nerve damage that would be very annoying to live with, the surgery not working at all and then possibility of worsening symptoms and having to do hand therapy. He said that my de quarvains wasnt so severe that i would definitely need surgery but it also seems to be lingering and he said it could come better or it may not. Im leaning towards not gettting the surgery because im terrified it will potentially be worse and then i will be off work even longer and have to do hand therapy ect.

But my main concern is not having that coverage from the insurance down the track not getting it done and then deciding later to have it done if symptoms worsen or persist which i need to speak to my case manager about.

Has anyone had the surgery when their symtoms or the tendon sheath wasnt siginificantly thickend? Was it successful? At this point its more of a nuisance and obviously i cant do certain things like gym like i was doing.

So it's been since January that I've been on work cover for the de quarvains, I was doing cleaning but will not be returning to that line of work due to it being too physically demanding as well as flaring up my hand again. The case manager has put me onto a work consultant for transferable skills analysis and we have discussed a few options but they are very limited with my hand, even though the de quarvains is not extreme as it was when I was cleaning (I would say probably 60-70% better then it was. But even after a cortisone injection which I thought would significantly improve it, It hasnt seemed to make any difference. I feel pressured now by the case worker, because I haven't found any suitable employment that can accommodate this mild injury.

I have no formal qualifications and my background is mostly customer service and retail which Im most comfortable with. There's been suggestions for admin or reception but even then typing could potentially aggravate it, but who really knows. I don't have experience in either those and it's very competitive to get those roles. I've tossed around the idea of doing dental assisting or aged care as a long term goal but again not ideal when your still recovering from a pain in the arse injury that's just enough to become an issue down the track.

I have an appointment again with the specialist, before when I saw him he was confident that the Injection would help and surgery was ruled out because there was only mild thickening. Job wise I've looked online there is alot of sales cal Centre jobs but I know I wouldn't last, Im not salesly at all and struggle at the best of times with just basic customer service. Feeling pretty depressed now, I don't think the work consultant has been overly helpful, but she also wanted to wait to see how the injection would go which would have opened up alot more in the way of doing a course for something or applying for a wide variety of jobs . I guess I just want to see if anyone else is in the same situation or has been and what they did? Thanks