r/DeQuervains

Hi, I was having DQ pain symptoms on left wrist since Dec 2025, but didn’t think much of it and thought it would go away on own cause I’m young(28y). Fast forward to March 2026, can’t close the door at all due to the pain.

Got a shot in March and Dr advised me to use night brace. The pain level dropped initially except slight discomfort sometimes, but now in July, I can feel nerve pain and tingling. I’ve started doing Dr. Joe’s exercises in June. I’m not sure if it ever will get better or I’m doing something wrong terribly.

I wasn’t icing much as well. Maybe once a day and that too only when it hurts a lot. Also by the end of the day, my vessels or nerve swell on the back of the wrist, and I have a feeling that my thumb on the right hand will follow suit soon. Don’t want it to happen as I don’t want to loose usage of both hands.

Any suggestions would help thanks.

I got surgery over a month ago now, and recovery was going well. Very little to no pain, besides some tightness/soreness during PT and the stretches they gave me. still some swelling but I could do normal everyday things without pain. I started to draw a little again which I know was a big stress factor for my dequervains. The first day I had no pain whatsoever, which made me very happy. The second day the pain came back right where it used to be. I did it for too long and overused it. The second I felt it I stopped and haven't gone back, now it have been almost 3 days and it feels as if I never even got the surgery in the first place. It hurts to even type this. What do I even do now? I'm such a fucking idiot.

Hi, I developed Quervain in my last trim of my pregnancy. So it wasnt because of the way I carried my baby (it was there already before), but I may have gotten worse yes.

It was related to the pregnancy hormones and it got better when I stopt breastfeeding. I had it for 2 years and had to have two Corticosteroid injections which made the pain finally go away.

Could it be linked to adeno or endo? Are there more women here who have had the same pain? And what did help?

I’ve never been formally diagnosed, but the finkelstein seems to indicate I’ve got it, though occasionally (like rn) I have pain in my mcp joint as well (left thumb).

I initially developed it after pushing myself pretty hard and consistently on bench press, despite using what I thought was pretty good form.

I stopped benching, and now only do push ups with closed fists. And despite taking extended periods off from working out entirely (I lost nearly 20 lbs of gains over the past year and a half), anytime I get back into it, even lightly it triggers the same pain. I also spend a lot of time typing on my phone and tablet for work, as well as for my personal writing which may contribute.

Over the counter pills don’t seem to work. I don’t have health insurance right now so I’m not really sure what to do as surgery or even injections aren’t on the table.

I get really depressed when I can’t work out, and losing the gains that took me years to build was a huge blackpill. I go through phases — work out, feel good, then start to hurt — stop working out, lose weight, pain lessens but never leaves — get fed up and figure if I’m gonna hurt either way may as well be lifting — pain worsens till I have to stop — repeat ad nauseam for the past two and a half years.

I started experiencing pain back in September of 2025. I went to physical therapy for a while and was released at the end of October 2025. The pain was very minimal and I only needed to wear my brace at work when I was using the 10 key and when I slept. The pain gradually got worse from Jan/Feb of 2026, then got nearly unbearable in May of 2026. I got a cortisone injection on June 1st, but a week later I was in even worse pain. I am unable to get surgery until 3 months after the injection, and even then I couldn't get on the schedule until September 28th. My pain has begun to radiate all the way up to my shoulder, and doing anything at work makes it worse. I was in tears the other day from using my letter opener 4 times first thing in the morning. I can't even wash my hair on my own because the pain has gotten so bad.

I am desperate for any advice. I have tried everything - physical therapy, tylenol and ibuprofen, ice, cbd ointment, penetrex, voltaren, paraffin wax, epsom salt soaks, essential oils - but the only thing that seems to help are salonpas patches. Even then, the patches only help my wrist and not the rest of my arm. Has anyone else with DQT experienced this, or does anyone know of another problem this could be leading to? I'm very concerned that I might be causing irreparable damage by doing simple tasks like typing an email. And, yes, my Dr did officially diagnose me with DQT.

Just wanted to make a post here as when I was going through this I convinced myself of all the worst case scenarios I imagine and read. I started having symptoms March of last year, got one cortisone injection with no relief, ended up getting surgery in June 2025. Even after the surgery I was having similar pain for a few months (though the actual post op pain was not bad). Mine was never really sharp pain with motion it was this gnawing burning pain. After some time I have full ROM, no pain, I can wear watches again (couldn’t tolerate anything touching that wrist before) and I’m lifting weights and gaming. There is hope guys!

I have wrist pain after a golf injury. My MRI shows moderate De Quervain’s and mild flexor tendon inflammation, plus mild median nerve swelling. My nerve test is normal. Steroid injections helped for a few weeks, then the pain returned but is now milder.One surgeon says my symptoms today are not severe enough for surgery. Another surgeon says the MRI and the steroid response confirm both conditions and that surgery is reasonable.Has anyone been in this situation? Did you wait or go ahead with surgery? How did it affect your return to sport? Heavy wrist sports like golf if I don't do surgery.

Hi again!!

So I til today I was thinking to schedule my surgery. I called and left a message to schedule.

But then... I feel like my 2nd cortisone shot finally kicked in after 4 weeks. I feel less pain, got my strength back (can pick up my daughter, open a water bottle, cut veggies, stir). Not back to how I was before DQ, but good enough to get my life back. I have slight pain afterwards, but manageable.

I can move my wrist and thumb. BUT there is tightness and little pain around where the DQ is but not around the tendon sheath. There is no inflammation around the tendon sheath. I didn't the Finkelstein test and there is no pain, just stiffness/tightness.

What should I do?? I'm spiralling again. Please help!!

hi, i am a student and i wrote 3.5+hours non stop for a test. later that night i developed severe pain in the wrist, back side of palm and shooting upto the elbow, later mildly upto shoulder. i used ice pack, pain killer, topical diclofenac and wrist splint. after ~40hrs there's no pain. my question is how long should i wait before resuming writing? i have to write A LOT in the next 2 months for an upcoming pen and paper subjective exam. ive written a lot in the past for 8+ hors a day but this never happened.

So last October I got my 1st cortisone shot in my right wrist for my DE Quervain's. It worked until this past week I started getting similar pain I had last time. Want to try to avoid surgery if I can, is it worth getting a 2nd cortisone shot since the 1st one worked for 7 months? Also if I get a 2nd one what are the chances it will work and my pain will be gone forever? I did make my appointment for next week to see my hand doctor so I have a few days to figure the best corse of action on this. A little background is I work in law enforcement and this is my main hand. Want to avoid desk duty for recovery from surgery. Just trying to figure out what is best course of action. I have been reading up on the possible side effects from a 2nd cortisone shot. Any help would be great.

I have de quervains in my left hand (which started after overcompensating for the ulnar sided tendinitis of my right hand). Both of my hands are still suffering from this after two years. I’ve taken weeks off work or moving my hands to no avail. I am also a musician so playing instruments is my entire life and I am in school for it. I cannot take a break during the school year, I’ve worked on my technique at the instrument because I thought that’s what the issue was but nothing has helped. It’s extremely frustrating because I didn’t do anything terribly wrong or super aggressive to cause this. It’s just been building and building overtime and I don’t know how to undo it. I had steroid injections two weeks ago and I have received zero relief and now I’m back to worse than baseline pain. The doctor told me it can take up to a month, but I’m just really confused because that’s not what they told me initially they told me at first that it would take a few days to a week and I have still seen absolutely no change in my pain. Music is my entire life. I am completely devastated and afraid that nothing will work for me. I am only 24. I have to go back to school in August and I am running out of time to figure this out. Literally desperate.

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.

Has anyone needed a second surgery? First was done in November 2025 healed well was doing great then grabbed something heavy in April and had a moment of pain that reminded me of DQ. Over the next month and a half my hand got worse and worse again. Saw my surgeon two weeks ago and he told me 25% of patients sometimes need a second surgery because tendons can fill/catch in the space that was “snipped” before.

If you’re still facing this issue don’t worry. I was in the same spot as many of you digging through this Reddit for answers whilst feeling so hopeless.

I didn’t go the surgery route and almost a year later I’m fully recovered. I stuck to a rigorous routine of massaging my upper forearm and thumb area for like 3 weeks and before I knew it majority of the pain went away. I also refrained from doing the activity that caused it too.

I watched the below video and followed his exercises and it worked like a dream.

https://youtu.be/Dvdko\_emB4M?si=-81PbTEG5EFSHMfU

Hello, hope everyone is having a fabulous day!

So I'm a college student, an EMT, and on the pre-dental track(I know, strange combination). After months of pain following an accident, I finally have de Quervain surgery scheduled for my dominant hand (July 3rd) after two failed steroid injections. My surgeon said that I could be back to normal hand use by August 20th to take both an organic chemistry and physics course during the fall semester. My school is very rigorous (I go to an ivy) and the academics are extremely brutal, they're also not very kind in terms of accommodations for handwriting. As fellow patients, I really wanted to ask if this expectation of ability/improvement is accurate post-surgery.

I'm also wondering what should be done following surgery (such as when to start OT), to be in the best possible position hand-wise come fall. I welcome any and all tips regarding limitations, experience, etc.

Thanks everyone!

Is it normal that there are worse and better days? I feel like it is getting better in general but still there are days where it clicks more often or I feel a little pain (I am not really in pain most of the time - it just doesn’t feel normal, but I am also wearing the splint all the time so maybe that’s why I am not feeling pain, cause I’m not moving my hand at all). I am just freaking out whenever I am having a worse day. Also I am living alone so I can’t rest my hand all the time since I have got to do dishes, getting dressed and stuff like that…

Hello.

Been a long lurker on this thread and finally had the courage to post.

I developed de Quervains of my right hand in Aug 2025 after placing overhead luggage during a flight. I felt a sharp pain in my right hand but didn’t think of it much. A few weeks later the pain kept getting worse so I finally went to a doctor who ordered a MRI. It did show de Quervains of the first compartment and he did offer a steroid injection. I declined and used a splint 24/7 for 6-8 weeks. Once I came off the splint I found a generic PT who helped me to get the pain under control within 5-6 sessions. My pain had mostly vanished for almost 1 month.

Randomly in Jan 2026 I was blowing my nose and I felt a sharp pain in the same hand and then the pain returned. I started splinting again and the pain resolved within 2-3 weeks. I then had another flare up a few weeks later and then decided to get a steroid shot in March. After getting a steroid shot I splinted most of the time for 6 weeks but since my hands were getting stiff so I stopped splinting.

I met with a specialized hand therapist who recommended PT and small dumbbell exercises. However, I’ve developed this burning of my wrist (top surface) and spreads into the forearm which also occurs at rest. The sharp painful movements of the thumb have overall decreased since the injection but this burning is very uncomfortable at times. It comes and goes, especially when I do some PT. My PT said that if this happens I should just cut down the reps and sets per day. I have some mild residual pain with wrist extension.

I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s been frustrating cause I’ve been in pain now for almost 10 months. Is this the end? Do I need surgery? I don’t want to get another injection cause it made my skin very sensitive and prone to rashes.

Has anyone had any luck with ultrasound therapy?