Wrist pain, TFCC injury and other issues

[kwunfu]

Hi There,

I cant say whether or not you have a TFCC injury as a scan will be able to confirm/deny. What I can say is that from your symptoms i.e forearm pain and ulnar nerve like sensations is that you have some involvement of your forearm muscles. The key issue with this is that the muscles that control your wrist start at the bony bits of the inside and outside elbow. Have a poke around there and have a feel and you will notice it is quite tender.


If you overload these muscle you can appreciate that it will cause some strain on the origin at the bony bit and all the 4 long muscles attached to ONE tendon so tendon is unhappy and starts to thicken and tighten. This can then cause weakness and restriction at your wrist. It is like doing 100 bicep curls and then your bicep is obviously tight and weakened as it has been overloaded. I suspect this is what has happened and resulting in some of your symptoms (not all) but can amount for a lot of it.

Treatment:
- Suggest seeing phyiso/ acupuncturist or massage thereapist or any one that can get stuck into the muscle to release the forearm muscles.
- Stretching forearm muscles like so:

Keeping elbow straight.

From your history it is likely to have a structural issue whether it be scaphoid, degenerative/overuse TFCC injury or wrist instability. Addressing the muscle issues should (i hope!) reduce some of your symtpoms. Give it 4 or 5 sessions of some deep tissue work to release it and the remaining symptoms will dictate how to go about it although obtaining an MRI is useful and consulting with an orthopod.

Hope that helps

[AJDux1502]

Thanks very much for replys. I have just booked another appt with doctor to see if I can be refered back to NHS physio again, but I think I will also look at a private physio.

That makes alot of sense about the muscle strain, i tend to get that problem mainly after a long dayu at work, cleaning windows gripping the pole for a long time. The difficulty is that since my scaffoid op I have had limited movement of that wrist, I cannot bend it any where near as far back or forward as in the picture there. I guess this may contribute to the tightness if my movement has been limited for so long?

I think I may try and push for a scan if I can. As I understand it wrist injuries are very difficult to diagnose properly. I know from last time the consultants thought my wrist was healed, only with the scan months later did they immediately see that my scaffoid was split down the middle.....

Thanks again

[kwunfu]

No problem. Glad to have helped. Again it sometimes is process of elimination. So work on the muscles and hopefully the physio will also address the joint stiffness with some hands on manual therapy. Give it a good 3-4 weeks of treatment and see how you go before you jump to any dire conclusions. After about a month of treatment and if your symptoms continue then further investigation may be warranted. An MRI will show a TFCC issue if that helps. All the best!