Hi, just after some advice if I should be seeking a surgical opinion. Its been 12 months since diagnosed with Dequervains in my right hand. PT, Injection x2 with no improvements. Braced nightly and at some points through the day as well. Gets to the point where I can't move my hand at all and the swelling is fairly bad and when I do go to move my hand it makes this "poping" movement and the pops back which is very pain full. Just after some advice, this is driving me crazy.

I actually have had three bouts of this in my left wrist.

Once in my early 20s when I was pushing around wheelchairs all day for a living… Lasted about 6 to 12 months.

Once in my early 30s after I had a baby and was lifting her… that lasted about 6 months and went away with a steroid injection.

In my mid 30s it struck again when I was doing a very wrist flexion heavy work out program with lots of planks and burpees and I was so upset. After almost a year of this, and not wanting to get another steroid injection, I was contemplating surgery.

Then I started a weight training program - specifically Caroline Girvan Iron series on YouTube. I had always done some light strength training before, like Pilates and cardio base strength training with lighter weights, but never anything where lifting power was the focus like with this program. For arms exercises, nothing crazy heavy either, only like 15-20 lb dumbbells (10 in some cases). After 6-8 weeks of doing it, maybe three days per week, my pain was gone and didn’t return.

I hate to say this, but I did kind of push through discomfort a little bit. Certain exercises like push-ups definitely hurt my wrist, but I just kind of worked through it IF the pain was manageable during the exercise. If the push-ups got to be really painful for the risk, I would just do them on my knees. But I would keep going. For the weight training exercises, I used as heavy as a weight as I could without my wrist deviating and putting pressure on that tendon. I would really have to focus on keeping my wrist stable to avoid hurting it.

I think it must have something to do with strengthening the muscles in my shoulders and forearms is helping to provide overall stability to my wrists? Anyway, I wanted to share weight training as a solution because I sympathize with all of you that this is a horrible condition.

I had my tendon sheath cut via surgery on my right wrist (dominant hand) five weeks ago and am still in pain from my thumb to my elbow. The elbow pain is actually. It’s only been hurting for a few weeks. I started pt last week and use ice packs, but nothing helps the pain. PT tells me not to do repetitive motions but no dr has put me on leave even though my job is doing repetitive motions with my dominant hand. When I told the surgeon about a week and a half ago, he said the surgery was a success and got defensive. I wasn’t questioning his abilities. I was questioning the way my body is healing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have had DQV since spring 2025 and have gotten two cortisone shots since. Right now my pain is low/moderate but when I bump my thumb it can flare up. Overall though- the pain is very manageable. My surgeon suggested surgery and no more cortisone shots. I’m worried that the pain might get worse after surgery… should I opt out? The pain is manageable currently and I can still do most physical activities, just planking hurts. I don’t wanna risk dealing with more pain just to try to get rid of small pain.

My DQT onset was instant, I woke up with it fully formed in my left hand one day November 2025. I tried to ignore it, like it was tennis elbow, which of course didn't work. I wish I had dug more deeply into what it was, I would have dealt with it right away if I knew the tendon sheath can burst. I've been resting and rehabilitating it the last five or six weeks, doing a lot of yoga and specialized exercises I mostly found on Youtube. It is getting steadily better, though not as quickly as I'd hoped. I'm a builder, and this stops my working cold.

I eliminated some of the exercises that sometimes made it feel worse, and I found an excellent guide at yogajala [dot] com, "Yoga for De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis: Ease Thumb Pain." All of these help a lot, and I've started doing them three times a day, or just when I'm feeling stiff. "Fist-to-Fan Tendon Glides," just slowly opening your hands through the range of motion, stopping if it hurts, have been especially good. Easy to remember and engages breath. Since I am feeling hints of DQT in my right hand as well, I'm being as attentive to it as I can be. Putting both hands through the routines should help, I think. Has anyone successfully headed off a case they felt coming? One theme I keep hearing repeated is you must relax and stretch your whole upper body, to lessen the chance of thumb over-work.

Use myofascial release balls (or a super ball like I did) to break up the gripping thumb muscles of the palm. Massage forearm muscles attached to affected tendons. 1200 mgs of Advil/day. Use a spica splint, though mine seemed to cause more pain than it helped, and I couldn't figure a way to bend the aluminum insert to make it not hurt. Diclofenac topically, and ice 3-4x/day. Eat good food, take vitamins, minerals, hydrate, and sleep.

I had the injection and kept my arm in a custom rigid splint made by my ortho for about 2 months (the injection worked reaaally slowly for some reason in my case). The splint was quite tight against my bone and I would often feel my muscles (brachoradialis perhaps?) being squeezed against it uncomfortably whenever I would pronate my arm.

My dequervains is much, much better, but now I occasionally feel a sharp snapping halfway along my forearm along my radial bone when I pronate my arm. It isn't painful (well, yet!), but extremely uncomfortable. My muscles have atrophied a bit, so I wonder if this is just them sliding over each other at a narrow spot - I hope I haven't done something permanent like torn a ligament or displaced something.

I was wondering if anyone else had this?

Just got the cortisone shot in my wrist about a day ago. For those who also got the injection, how long was your wrist sore after the shot. I’m currently experiencing some redness and soreness in my wrist and hand which I expected.

On another note I don’t even feel the DQ symptoms anymore which I’m very happy about. Just more curious on the soreness from the shot.
Thanks!

This is a long one but pleaaassse read 🥺😭 (26F) got a dequervains release surgery a little over a year ago after dealing with it for a number of years. Before my surgery I suffered from atrophy as they gave me too many steroid shots. After all of the shots and oral steroids I gave up and gave in to surgery. I should’ve asked more questions and part of that may be on me but my Dr also did not explain much either. Fresh out of surgery my entire hand was numb. Okay, typical right? No. It didn’t go away for a month. While the feeling in the rest of my hand eventually came back the feeling in my thumb did not. This numbness radiates into my forearm along my radial nerve. Had an emg comes back seemingly normal. Whatever. A full year later im still in pain, still numb, now developing a tremor and still zero answers or any post surgery scans ordered. I was told that there was nothing they could do for any of the things that I was experiencing and everything from my previous emg was fine. I go and get a second opinion after I overheard some crazy shit that my doctor said, took the new doctor five minutes to figure it out. Ordered scans which confirmed he was right. My tendon is completely unstable and moving around all through my thumb side of the wrist, nerve damage, and advanced dequervains. My Dr is now recommending a total reconstruction of my first dorsal compartment. LOVELY. At the very least 3 month recovery. Im not going to get into detail about how I think my hand surgeon has completely dropped the ball with my case. I genuinely think there was an error during my surgery ( I asked my doctor if this could be the case and he did not want to answer). Has anyone else had this happen to them? Have you had the surgery? If so, what was recovery like? Did your doctor give you a reason as why this could’ve happened? Did it get better? If you are a doctor and are reading this, how often have you seen this? And yes I know I could ask my doctor these questions but I would like outside perspectives. Please help a girl out, I started cosmetology school (before the tremor) since I had the go ahead from my doctor and well, now im here and worried about my future will look like.

I'm 26 and I've had De Quervains since about last August. Not only am I very hypermobile (a scapular dyskinesia from throwing a stuffed animal sure was an... Interesting time) but work as an over the phone interpreter. I'm basically typing 100% of the time all the time, and it certainly didn't help things.

Now because of my hypermobility and such I see a physical therapist every single month and probably will for the rest of my life since there's always something that needs fixing. He quickly zeroed in on the de quervains once I actually told him what was going on and it's been a long year of massages, exercises and that one thing where they put an ultrasound waves(?) and those little patches with electrical currents. And obviously the thumb splint.

I recovered. To the point where my PT told me that I could start weaning myself off the wrist brace. So I did. I started taking off two hours before my shift ends. This week I started doing 3 hours. It's only Tuesday and pain I haven't had in nearly two moths is back.

Im no stranger to pain but the thought of dealing with this for the rest of my life depresses me. I don't want to have to use the brace indefinitely but I'm scared if I push through and keep trying to wean off the brace it will come back.

Anyone else have experience with trying to stop using the brace? Any advice or recommendations??

I am miserable. I have bilateral DQ with intersection syndrome in the right and some other joint pains in my fingers due to hypermobility and I have a release surgery scheduled for my right hand later this month after 2 failed injections and 12 weeks OT that helped a little but not enough. I have been bracing basically since last october. I am immensely worried that it won’t help and nothing is really helping me feel better, therapy not helping. My hands are everything to me as an illustrator, sewist, crafter and gamer. the first two things are my job. I can’t hold a sewing needle and I can barely turn a doorknob. I’m afraid I will never get my life back. I don’t know what I’ll do if this surgery doesn’t help. My therapist keeps asking me and I just don’t know. It’s both my hands and my career and hobbies on the line, how could I know what to do in this situation. I don’t have skills for a job that doesn’t heavily rely on my hands. I’ve been doing art since I’ve been alive. It’s frustrating because no one seems to understand how seriously this affects me. I don’t know I don’t have a point to this post it just sucks so bad. I hate being in pain all the time and not being able to do any work. I feel guilty and crazy and I’m stressed constantly. Are there any hobbies besides reading that are easy on the hands that people recommend?

I'm 26 and have had de quervain's in both wrists/thumbs since late 2021. It took a long time for doctors to even acknowledge the hand pain and didn't really send me to any specialists. In all fairness to the doctors, I had become disabled in early 2022 with something that was more pressing at the time and the doctors fully focused on that. However, I do know that my de quervain's is co-morbid with my EDS. My hands are extremely hypermobile and my wrists are, too. This compounded with my class load and plans for the future.

My doctor told me to essentially treat it as broken for 12 weeks. I kept it immobilized in a splint for that time, icing when I could. When I needed to come back home to focus on my health instead of going to graduate school, I went to physical therapy. Physical therapy said to keep it braced for another 8 weeks, so I was wearing that splint for nearly 6 months straight. By that point, the pain was so bad that it was shooting up my elbows on my right hand and I had to shift my life onto my left hand (which was also starting to get bad de quervain's symptoms so I could barely do that either). Even as of right now, nearly 5 years later, I can't open my hand fast. You know how thumbs are supposed to be opposable? Guess again. I've done physical therapy several times now, I've gotten cortisone shots, I've immobilized, strength-trained — everything. Nothing helps that much. The physical therapy helped increase my mobility when it was at its worst, the cortisone shots helped for maybe a week tops. I live with a baseline of pain that's my new normal, and even typing or using a mouse is hard for me now. Extremely luckily for me, I got approved for SSI a handful of months ago and have been able to focus more on recovery... but through all of my efforts to be healthier again, my hands refuse to catch up.

I believe I can say fully that de quervain's has impacted my life for the worse. While I also had my other disabilities I unfortunately gained, the de quervain's was just the cherry on top. My entire life was centered around my hands. I was an artist; I was accepted to a fantastic fine arts school for a graduate degree. I was in the process of moving across the entire country to go to said graduate school and live with my partner at the time. But then all of this happened and I had to completely abandon my future. I was also a very seasoned musician: I used to play 6 instruments with piano being my favorite. Piano was probably my favorite activity, and I haven't played one beyond a couple of notes in five years. I've forgotten entire songs I worked so hard to learn. I was a a good writer, too, and now typing is too much.

All of this physical pain compounded with the fact that I lost my entire life before this all happened has just put me in a very bad place. You'd think I'd figure it out that the de quervain's was actually a disability for me too and that I wasn't just being dramatic. I keep reading on here that people go through the pain for months and can't stand it. I've been going through this for nearly half a decade. My doctors always made me think that I was being dramatic, or that it couldn't have possibly hurt as much as I was saying. So I never really thought I needed help with it and I just needed to suck it up :( in hindsight I probably shouldn't have let that behavior alter my plan of care of belief of my injuries, but it did. Nothing I can do about it now, though.

This is all to say, I've been contemplating the release surgery. I'm just deathly scared of the pain getting worse. I'm even more worried about what the complications would be for someone with as much hypermobility in the hands and wrists as I do; I know there's really no studies to comfort me about this. I've had other procedures and surgeries damage my nerves or outright made me bedbound from complications before and I just don't want to go through something like those experiences again.

TL;DR I've had really bad de quervain's in both wrists and thumbs for 5 years. I'm extremely hypermobile in the hands and wrists and I'm really worried about the procedure and consequences of someone like me getting it done since my doctors aren't explaining really anything to me. I want to feel relief and want to potentially get the surgery.

Has anyone here ever dealt with de quervain's as long as I have? Is anyone hypermobile in the hands/wrists and got the release surgery? Anyone have any advice? I know I have a rather complicated case here so I understand if there's not really anything I can do but try it; I just want to try and feel more secure about the procedure or any other tidbits of information that the doctor handling my case just does not care to tell me. I'm left so much in the dark here it's unbelievable.

I’m 27 with moderate to severe pain at both thumb bases and the thumb bone. I am a server who works 7 and a half hour shifts constantly using my hands, and I just saw my doctor yesterday since the pain is progressing and physical therapy hasn’t been helping nor splinting. I had an X ray and MRI and apparently both showed nothing abnormal or concerning. He said he would refer me to a rheumatologist and said I probably don’t have cmc arthritis or Dequervian’s and thinks it’s because of my hyper mobility. Either way, I’ve been crying this morning dreading to clock into work today. The pain so achy and hot and pulsing when I use my hands but I have to grip so much at my job. I don’t know what to do anymore and I am so depressed because of this. Any thoughts? Recommendations? Ideas?

I had my release surgery in April and things have only got worse since then.

I was given no follow up therapy or exercises or even advice othet than "come back in two months"

I finally managed to get some physio through my workplace who are broadly just helping me manage my pain while I wait for a second opinion.

The second opinion appointment isn't til September.

I am due my follow up with the surgeon but when I called the department at the hospital to check what was going on I was told "there are no clinics at the moment" and "we'll call when you're on the list"

At this rate I'll have my second opinion before my follow up!

I feel so abandoned by the system and hopeless and in pain. Not helped by the fact that i have also been waiting for 2 months for biopsy results from an endoscopy (unrelated to hand stuff of course but it all contributes to the stress level)

Does anyone have any advice or tips for coping or for short cutting things in the UK with the NHS

Even when wearing the brace I find myself moving a certain way and get shooting pain. For those who used the brace with success did you immobilize your hand further, that is, essentially NOT use that hand at all while in the brace? I make my coffee, go to the bathroom, flip on light switches, tieing my shoes, then OUCH, when I do these things, move the wrong way Sharp jolt of pain while even in the brace. Please help.

I have release surgery in a few months and I can't seem to get a straight answer from my surgeon about how long he recommends I take off work to heal. He keeps saying "it just depends on what you do." I'm a preschool teacher and he responded that I could take off as long as I like and they'll happily fill out the paperwork for my PFML. Well, that's not really an answer, is it??

I do use my hands quite a lot/do some lifting, but nothing insane. I don't know if I should be looking to take off a few days, a couple weeks, a month...

If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it very much!

What if my bilateral release surgery (12 months ago) after 5 years of pain failed, pain is back and rehab is not progressing anywhere, still hurts. What else is there I can do?

What I changed:

• I stopped doing finger-specific exercises. They were helpful at first for relieving tension and improving endurance, but they weren't addressing the root cause of the problem.
• My physical therapist added two new exercises, and we also increased the weight/resistance on some of the existing ones.

Strength exercises that helped:

• Prone T raises: Lie face down on a bench with your arms extended in a T position and your thumbs pointing toward the ceiling. Slowly raise your arms until they reach shoulder height (about a 90° angle), squeeze your shoulder blades together for 2–3 seconds, then lower them in a controlled manner. 3 sets of 5–8 reps, resting 1–2 minutes between sets.
• Resistance band overhead ("military") press: Using a neutral grip, press the band overhead. Hold the top position briefly, then lower it under control. Use the same sets, reps, and rest periods as the previous exercise.
• Resistance band serratus anterior exercise: Hold the band at rib height with your elbows bent at 90°, forming an L shape. Keeping your elbows straight throughout the movement, raise the band in front of your chest and continue upward until your hands are above your head. Hold for 3 seconds at the top. 5 repetitions.
• "Demons and Angels": Finish with this well-known shoulder mobility and stability exercise.

Finally, there are two additional exercises that are more complementary than essential. One is a chest-opening stretch, and the other involves shoulder presses while also providing a light stretch for the back of the legs.