u/timeaisis

Hey all, kind of at my wit's end here and needing some advice.

First off, a little backstory:

A little over a month ago I started experiencing pretty intense pain in my thumb of my right hand. I went to my primary care doc, and they thought I had some tendonitis or muscle strain injury, so they prescribed my some oral steroids. Well, a week or so past and no improvement. In fact, my right hand started hurting overall. I started feeling pain in my wrist and burning and tinglyness in my thumb, index, and middle finger. It got pretty aggravating, so I decided to go to a ortho doc that specialized in hands.

Well, they diagnosed me with trigger thumb *and* carpel tunnel and gave me a steroid shot for my thumb and told me to start wearing a wrist brace at night. Well, I'm now about two weeks after that appointment and can say the steroid shot didn't do anything for my thumb pain, and the wrist brace seemingly doesn't seem to do anything either. I tried with the splint inside at first, but that kept making my wrist pain worse, digging into parts of my arm, and surprisingly yielding bad elbow pain during the night and in the morning. Well, I took the splint out after reading some similar things here on reddit, and while that has made the side effects of the brace go away (ish), it doesn't seem to be actively making my pain better. I still have terrible pain in the morning, sometimes it feels like my thumb is on fire. Other times I have extreme soreness in my three fingers (thumb, index, and middle). My wrist feels stiff often.

I have tried splinting, I have tried the steroid shot, I have tried changing my desk setup at work to be more ergonomic, I've tried icing/heat, resting my hand, etc, but nothing seems to be making this any better. I don't know if it's *worse* than it was, but it's certainly becoming a constant source of pain in my life and I don't know what to do.

I have a follow-up at the ortho hand doc in 5 weeks. I also have a follow-up with my primary care this friday for something I think is unrelated (I started getting tingling in my feet lately, which has come on near the same time as these symptoms, pretty much soon after I got the steroid shot).

Does anyone have any advice for pain relief? I feel like everything I try does nothing, or has a chance of making it worse. Do I really need to just rest my wrist/fingers for a month or something? I have a job where I have to use a keyboard and mouse ~8 hours a day, so it's not something I can just quit doing easily. Should I keep wearing the brace at night even though the pain is still there in the morning when I get up?

The only thing that I will say gives me relief is a cold pack, but it's pretty temporary. I also sometimes take ibuprofen in the mornings when it's really bad. It doesn't help *much*, but any little bit of relief helps. The other small thing that seems to help is some mild wrist stretches, but again, these are pretty temporary and minor relief, but I've been doing them in the mornings when I get up. Is this just a long road to relief? Should I keep doing what I'm doing? Should I add anything?

Thanks.

Hey all. Long time listener first time caller. Ive struggled with self diagnosed carpal tunnel for years, but only recently saw an orthopedic doc after some really bad thumb pain.

Started in thumb and began radiating out from there. Later, started having wrist pain and the classic “tingly” in my index and middle fingers, which I’ve experienced before. The intense thumb pain is new, though. Also started experiencing some pain the my elbow as well (same arm). I’ve had some elbow pain before, so I didn’t think anything too much about it.

After a visit to my primary and a week of some conservative treatment, went to a ortho and got a steroid shot in my thumb and recommended a night brace for my wrist. Fair enough.

Tried the brace and started having intense elbow pain during the night, to the degree that I can’t sleep in the brace anymore.

Trying to figure out if these are all related. I have another appointment with my doc in 6 weeks, but I don’t know what to do. He asked me to wear the brace to see if it’s helping, and to be honest I don’t know if it is because I haven’t been able to wear it long enough.

Wondering if these flare up’s are related. I’ve heard about cubical tunnel, and doc did do a quick poke test but didn’t mention i could have that. Trying to alleviate my thumb, wrist, and elbow all at the same time without aggravating the other. Any insight would be helpful. Thank you!